


Wake Not the Woods

by KitLaBelle



Series: Hell Hath No Fury [2]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teen Wolf (TV) Fusion, BAMF John Silver, Banshee Powers, Dom/sub Undertones, Emissaries, F/F, F/M, Female John Silver, Feral Behavior, Fictional Religion & Theology, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Hunters & Hunting, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, John Silver is a Little Shit, M/M, Many Other Mythological Creatures, Multi, Original Character(s), Other, POV John Silver, Pack, Pack Dynamics, Pirates of the Caribbean References, Post-Season/Series 02 AU, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rule 63, Slow Build, Sparks, Taking Liberties With History, Werewolf Captain Flint | James McGraw, Werewolves, Witches, so much UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:20:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 63,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23799910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitLaBelle/pseuds/KitLaBelle
Summary: Silver knew what the men didn’t quite grasp; she wasn’t challenging Flint – she was giving him two options she could live with. One he could go along with to no detriment of his own plans, or the other she would forge ahead and do what he wanted anyway, justwithouthim. It was a fine splitting of hairs, but the distinction would allow him to feel in control rather than challenged, and from the huff he sent at her before turning away, she knew he agreed.
Relationships: Anne Bonny/"Calico" Jack Rackham, Billy Bones & John Silver, Captain Flint | James McGraw/John Silver, Eleanor Guthrie/Charles Vane, Miranda Barlow/Captain Flint | James McGraw, past Eleanor Guthrie/Max - Relationship
Series: Hell Hath No Fury [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1688605
Comments: 66
Kudos: 52





	1. IX.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Olorisstra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olorisstra/pseuds/Olorisstra) who gave the kind of feedback every author wishes they’d get but rarely ever does. I wasn’t going to continue this – mostly I think I was hoping that having gotten fem!Silver out of my head she would leave me the hell alone – but then I read that amazing comment and there the bitch was again, _laughing_ at me. So you wouldn’t be reading this if it wasn’t for [Olorisstra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olorisstra/pseuds/Olorisstra) \--> Kudos and cookies and your next three wishes. But also, I expect more feedback. It feeds the needy bitch in my soul (looking at you, Silver) and keeps her hounding me until 2am, writing eight, six-thousand word chapters in a little over two weeks ( _homuhgurd!_ ). If this keeps up I might just finish the Series before summer. 
> 
> * _cries, slaps herself, then gets it together_ * 
> 
> So, here we go. Season 2. 
> 
> * _evokes Randall_ * 
> 
> You’re welcome.

“ _Now this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky,_  
_And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die._ ”  
~ The Law for the Wolves  
by Rudyard Kipling

* * *

**_Late Spring 1715 – Division Bay, Florida_ **

Oates was dead.

It was the first thing Silver heard as she walked up on the group of _Walrus_ men gathering on the beach. He’d lost his hand and been blown off the ship in the fight with the Spanish Man of War. His bunkmate, Palmer had jumped in after him and kept him afloat until the fight was over and the _Walrus_ limped toward shore. Another three hours treading water while cobbling together enough debris to survive until Billy sent the longboats and Silver hadn’t been sure what was keeping him alive beyond sheer, stubborn cussedness.

But it hadn’t been Billy who’d come to get them; it had been Vane and a handful of survivors in a pair of longboats from the _Ranger,_ who’d gotten the worst of it in the fight. Her powder magazine had been hit and she’d gone down very quickly taking all but ten of her crew.

Another hour to row a few thousand yards to shore and she knew that Oates had lost consciousness but was still breathing. The men had gone silent; to a man wondering what had happened to Billy and the _Walrus,_ wondering if they’d been forgotten. Within sight of the Division Bay – and the irony in running aground at the very beach where they’d expected to find the _Urca_ wasn’t lost on any of them – they spotted the ship and the men, hale and hearty enough to tread into the surf and help drag the longboats and the injured ashore.

Billy explained how he’d tried to send the longboats for them three hours ago; but Dufresne had convinced the men that a vote to decide whether Billy, Silver and Flint were responsible for provoking the fight and for the murder of Singleton and Gates was more important. Then a shout had gone up; gold.

The _Urca_ had been found wrecked in the bay north of them. The Spanish Man of War was anchored in the bay.

Before a vanguard could be rallied and the trek north taken to assess the situation, Dufresne called the men to account. “We need to decide-”

“I’ll not have you presiding as judge over my trial,” Flint interrupted, his quiet voice as ever garnering the men’s attention as if by magic. “If you do this here you do it front of all the men and you tell them everything.”

“The crimes you’ve committed against your crew are undisputed,” Dufresne started.

“Says who?” Flint asked.

Before Dufresne could open his mouth Silver slipped forward between bodies, nimble on bare feet since she’d lost her boots hours ago treading water, and punched the bespectacled bookkeeper where the bruise on his jaw from being kicked by Billy was forming a dark purple blotch. When he stumbled she hit him again, knocking him to the ground, and the only reason she didn’t jump on top of him and finish the job was because Flint came up behind her and bodily picked her up. The men were shouting in surprise, Dufresne was cursing and several pistols were drawn. Only Silver was silent because she was too busy trying to get out of Flints arms so that she could beat the man to death for letting another die over pettiness.

“Stop,” Flint gritted at her, squeezing his arms around her chest when she didn’t stop squirming. “Enough! He’s not worth it!”

“I’ll fucking kill him!” Dufresne got to his feet, spitting blood. “Give me a gun, I’ll put the rabid thing out of his misery.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Flint growled, suddenly passing Silver off to Billy, who pulled her back far enough to see Vane, Rackham and even Anne Bonny closing rank in front of her.

Most of the men had grown quiet to watch the tableau, but several backed away from Dufresne when he threatened Silver. Over the past several weeks she’d slowly grown on the crew; most treated her as a kid brother, unknowing as they were that the ‘boy’ that cooked for them was, in fact, a woman. Despite that, they’d begun calling her their ‘albatross,’ their good luck. As she understood the story told to her by Flint, an albatross was only good luck until they killed it, and then it was a curse. It was a silly superstition, but it was a superstition she wasn’t above exploiting.

“And what of your crimes?” she called out, struggling to get away from Billy’s grip without hurting him. “Let me go Billy, or I’ll break your hand.”

He lifted both hands and sent Flint a look as if to say she was _his_ problem now. Flint rolled his eyes but stepped near when Silver came back to confront Dufresne.

The man glared at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Who’s going to answer for Oates?” She saw Palmer’s head come up. “Who’s going to answer for Gates?”

 _“Flint_ murdered him-!”

“Because he was going to take the _Walrus_ and run!” Silver bit out. “Leaving the _Ranger_ to face the Man o’ War alone!”

Dufresne brandished the letter she’d seen Gates slap against his chest, “Gates detailed the _many_ ways Flint lied to his crew. The many ways he would _continue_ to lie and steal from the men.”

“And why did he give that to you?” It was said quietly, and not by Silver. The men turned to look at Billy, who’s arms were crossed and his shoulders hunched as though warding off a blow. “Why would he hand that over to you just as we were about to search for the _Urca?_ What were you doing that prompted him to give you _evidence_ against himself, the Captain and me?”

Dufresne closed his mouth and glanced tellingly to DeGroot.

Billy straightened when he saw it. “I’ll tell you what he was doing,” Billy said to the men without taking his eyes off Dufresne. “He was planning to mutiny.”

 _“Before_ he had the evidence?” Logan asked. Several men grumbled and Silver could feel the tide beginning to turn.

So could Dufresne. “Because I’d learned that Flint had lied about Singleton. He didn’t have the page. This thief did,” he pointed directly at Silver.

She rolled her eyes and started to argue but Flint cut her off.

“Silver is not a thief.”

“He stole the page-”

“Silver _had_ the page, but wasn’t the one who tore it from the logbook.” Flint explained. And so the circumstances of how Silver had come to be part of their crew came to light; the misunderstanding between Max and Silver, the deal with Vane’s crew, the bargain they’d struck in Hornigold’s fort.

“Gates details how you planned to steal part of the treasure from the men,” Dufresne continued. "Defend that theft from your men, if you can.”

“Simple enough,” Flint started. “It’s not theft.”

“Taking more than your portion of the prize is-”

“Sequestering a portion of the prize before distribution to be used for the crew’s good is _my right_ as Captain!” Flint interrupted. “It’s not stealing from the men when it’s to be put to use in their defense!”

“You’re talking about a retrenchment,” Rackham interrupted the shouting match.

“Yes,” Flint said simply.

“But that’s only for a time of scarcity or great need,” Rackham argued. “This situation will literally be the opposite of that.”

“Or war,” Billy added, a dawning look of comprehension on his face

“We’re not at war,” argued Dufresne.

“Not yet,” Billy turned to meet Flint in the eyes, a shared look of understanding passed between them. “The captain of the _Scarbourough_ said it when he came to arrest Richard Guthrie the night _before_ Singleton called for the vote. The King of England has declared pirates monsters and means to eradicate us.”

“The Spanish will no doubt rally to join them once they find out we’ve stolen the _Urca_ gold,” Rackham speculated under his breath, but not low enough. It started a wave of worried grumbling in the men.

“Why not tell the men everything from the beginning?” DeGroot insisted, garnering a few shouts of agreement.

Flint just stared at the man incredulously.

But it was Vane who explained that bit of idiocy. “Jack, would you have told our crew the goings on behind a deal that intricate, with that many moving parts, who, if any one of the greedy shits got it into his head to get the page before his brothers and sell it to another crew for a bigger portion for themselves, would have ruined the deal entirely for the rest of us?”

“God, no,” Rackham laughed. “Can you imagine the bloody free-for-all? What’s the point of a captain and quartermaster if they don’t make decisions on behalf of the crew, for the betterment of the men, sometimes against their worst natures?”

“Like killing Mosiah to bolster votes for that vicious idiot Singleton so that the men with half a brain in their heads desert to your crew?” Flint asked with a pointed smirk. There was a low angry mutter at that bit of revealed information.

“Yes, well,” Rackham swallowed. “Just doing what was best for my crew at the time, Captain.”

“Don’t call him that,” Dufresne bit out. “The only reason I don’t call for a vote right now is in hopes that he can help me find a way to get that gold, or as much as possible, off that beach.”

Flint stilled and his gaze turned bright. “Why would I do that?”

“Because if you do,” Dufresne puffed up. “I’ll personally guarantee that your sentences are commuted.”

The men stilled. It was an assumption of authority; a direct challenge. Just in the few weeks Silver had known Flint, that hadn’t gone well for the challenger, any of them. And from the wary looks passed around the crew, that record bore up historically for the past ten years that Flint had been Captain of the _Walrus._ She noted that even Vane and his crew put a respectable distance between them, as if to ward off the merciless violence Flint was known for.

“You’ll guarantee that, will you?” Flint said quietly.

“You underestimate your men yet again. They will hear reason,” Dufresne explained as though talking to an imbecile, completely missing the low warning in Flint’s face and features as he continued. “Especially when it comes from a voice they can trust. The men feel they’re entitled to leave this ordeal with something to show for it-”

“Fuck those men,” Flint growled, stepping forward with such menace that Dufresne stumbled back a step before clenching his fists and planting his feet. “Fuck them for their shortsightedness. Fuck them for their ingratitude. And fuck them for siding with a cowardly, sniveling shit of a mutineer. There are likely over a hundred men on that beach,” he flung a hand northward to emphasize his point, and it was an effective one; even with the combined survivors of both crews, there were less than fifty men standing on this beach. “Sworn to protect that gold with their lives. In a matter of hours they’ll dispatch teams to search the surrounding area. In a matter of days, they’ll locate this wreck, this camp, and they will kill every last man who stands as a member of your crew. And they’ll deserve it. None more so than you.

“So force a vote if you makes you feel more powerful,” Flint lifted a lip to show just how powerful he thought the bespectacled man to be. “But know this; I was _right._ I was right when I said the _Urca_ was here. I was right when I said that Warship was in escort. I was right to stop Gates from abandoning our brother pirates to be slaughtered, and don’t for a minute think I don’t regret going against _my friend-”_ Flint spat the words in Dufresne’s face, “-for the lives of those men, for their futures. Because I will be right when, in six months to a year, the Royal Navy will come to Nassau, not to gently cajole and offer pardon to those men too weak to stand on their convictions, but to burn and pillage and subdue. And if you or any man who stands with you can’t stomach the coming fight, then frankly, we’re better off without you.”

There was a roar of approval across the beach. And Silver marveled; yet again, Flint had rallied the men to his side with nothing more than words. It was fascinating, and a bit frightening, and Silver could only be reassured that for some reason, Flint was momentarily on her side. Should there ever come a moment where she and he disagreed, Silver planned on _not_ standing in front of him; a target for him to bludgeon to death.

A vote was called, and charges laid, and one by one, the men went down the list; only a handful argued against forgiving Silver for her part in the ‘theft’ of the page; almost unanimously forgiving Billy’s part in assisting with the murder of Mister Singleton; and Flint’s sentence for the deaths of Singleton and Gates would be commuted providing he could get them the _Urca_ gold – that part all without any assurances provided by Mister Dufresne. In the meantime, because of the vacancy due to Gates’ absence, the position of quartermaster was also to be decided.

Unique to pirate ships, the post of quartermaster was given by free men to balance the tyrannical power of a captain in the Royal Navy or Merchant Fleets; a quartermaster was for the men, not his country of company. The Quartermaster could, if provoked by the decision of the crew council, take over command of a ship, deciding routes, and even countermand the Captain outside of direct conflict.

Billy turned it down flat, staring challengingly at DeGroot when he argued for Billy to take it. “I don’t disagree with Flint. You want someone who wasn’t Gates, who will stand up to a Captains orders. That won’t be me.”

“Even after Flint murdered Gates?” DeGroot asked, deliberately provoking the younger man’s ire.

Billy just looked at him sadly. “I’ll never forgive the man; but I understand why he did it.”

“The men need you,” he insisted.

“I’m already their boatswain and in Flint’s confidence,” Billy shrugged. “That will have to be good enough because I won’t be pitted against him to make you feel more in control.”

Then DeGroot put Dufresne forward for Quartermaster, which went through though the vote was close, as some of the men had been swayed by Flint’s speech.

The first order of business was sending out an advance party to assess the situation north. And the first argument between new quartermaster and captain occurred over who was necessary to go.

“Take Vincent, Logan and Joshua.”

“No,” Flint held up a hand when those three started forward. “I don’t need them to assess and taking too many men will only chance the Spanish seeing us.”

“I don’t trust you,” Dufresne declared baldly.

“I don’t care if you trust me,” Flint stated, just as blunt. “I’m doing what is necessary as captain.”

“You’re not captain until you get that gold.”

Flint stepped forward at that, his broad shoulders seemed broader in only his blood red shirt, without the bulk of vest or jacket to hide his obvious strength. “You want that gold? Then you’ll let me go and figure out how we get it, without hindering me unduly because of your paranoia.” When Dufresne remained silent at that, Flint took it as acquiescence. “I’ll take Logan; I can use him to assess their munitions. Beauclerc, Paxton and Levi, Vane and Silver.”

“Why the cook?” Dufresne argued, still upset that the men had pardoned a thief and liar against his word. “You need to asses their food stores?”

There was a bit of laughter from some of the men who overheard his question, but when they noticed both Flint and Vane _not_ laughing, it stuttered down to a silent question. Beauclerc was an obvious choice, he was the crew’s sharpshooter and none had better eyes to see far distances. Both Paxton and Levi were lookouts and known for catching details. Even Vane wasn’t argued against, for as the Captain of another crew in consort, he had every right to go along. But Silver?

“That cook,” Flint clarified. “Sees more than your common sailor. How do you think Hammond fell?”

And that not only silenced the men and reminded them of her trouncing of the man and his cronies when they attacked her over and insult and rights to Max, but it also brought to mind how she had threatened him with death, stating that he would ‘never step foot on Nassau sand again.’

Silver heard the words ‘albatross’ and ‘wix’ again. The latter being an old word for male witch, but usually held in respect along the same lines as ‘wizard’ or ‘mage.’ Both commanded a kind of respect, despite the fact that either title would get you burned at the stake or killed in some other tortuous fashion for defying the almighty power of the Church.

Silver winced inwardly, knowing that if- _when_ the men found out her sex, that all of her hard-earned training and knowledge would be dismissed as her being a ‘witch’ and nothing more. Some of her ancestresses had fallen prey to the fear and loathing promoted by the Church for the ‘weaker’ sex until they’d learned to hide their authority and couch it in terms of matriarchal respect.

Before they moved off, Vane motioned for Anne Bonny to join them, explaining her inclusion to them because she had an ‘ear’ on her. Rackham stayed behind to ostensibly keep an eye on the _Ranger_ crew, but in reality to do what Dufresne had no experience doing; managing the men and their expectations. Flint nodded and the eight of them started up the bluff.

“We’ll expect you back before second bell, Flint,” Dufresne warned.

Flint lifted a hand at the warning to return in four hours but didn’t turn around. “I expect this camp to be set and ready by the time I get back then, Mister Dufresne.”

Beside her, Vane snorted and the few men around her chuckled before settling into a ground-eating lope that covered the distance of nearly four miles from the pirate cramp to the edge of the bay where the _Urca_ had wrecked ashore in just under an hour. What they found there was what Flint had surmised; the Warship stood sentry on the bay, over half her soldiers dispatched to the beach to provide protection and help picking up each gold and silver coin, every gold and silver bar, and repacking each and every bit of plate, candlestick and chain made from the treasure of the new world. There was even a gilded chair sat high on the sand as if overlooking the rest of its treasure, with no doubt that uncomfortable throne was meant for the Spanish Court.

It was a dazzling sight even to Silver, who had spent her adolescent years in the hidden Pyrénées mountain fortresses of the Gavarnie Pass that separated Southern France and Northern Spain. There, Basque warrior tribes exacted heavy levies and tolls from merchants and traders utilizing the pass between countries, most of which was sent in to Biscay to support the Basque farming communities there. As matriarch of those tribes, that richness showed nowhere greater than in her grandmother’s house; she’d learned table manners using gold flatware with encrusted silver goblets and silk embroidered linens. Yet despite her familiarity with finery, she’d never seen enough gold and silver coin to fill a copper bathtub, yet here was enough to fill fifty with some spilling across the floor.

“Full compliment on the beach,” Flint murmured, his eyepiece extended as he knelt just below the rise of the bluff to spy on the Spanish below without outlining his form against the horizon.

Beside him, laid out on his belly and peeking through his long gun scope, Beauclerc hummed. “Thirty or so riggers tasked with picking up the spilled coin, each pair with a _pistola_ or cutlass between them.”

“Cannon being lined up on the beach,” Paxton murmured. “Facing the hills.”

“Big Lola’s,” Levi hissed. “All of ‘em.”

“‘Lola’s?” Silver asked distractedly, her own eyes on the way the men moved on the beach below.

“Cannon, eighteen pounders,” Vane growled. “Over sixty in total that I can see. No telling how many more they’ll salvage from the wreck before nightfall.”

“They’ve got the shot, but their powder is wet,” Logan pointed out. “Look at the way they’re laying the packed bags.”

Flint grunted. “Bonny?”

There was a moment of silence before she answered, “They’re worried reinforcements won’t get here before more pirates do. Stories of the attack are already getting the men from the _Urca_ worried despite _Capitán_ Ramos’ reassurances.”

Logan turned and eyed her disbelievingly. “You can _hear_ that?”

She glared at him. “I read lips.”

Silver smirked because that hadn’t been a ‘no.’

“Is that what Vane meant when he said you had an ear?”

Both Vane and Bonny answered “No,” and then ignored him.

“They’re not working with each other,” Silver offered, noticing when Flint tipped his head toward her as if to say ‘go on.’ “The crew of the _Urca_ is shifting treasure; see how they’re working in pairs? But the Warship crew are just watching. _Capitán_ Ramos is treating this like an appointment and not the sacred duty I’ve no doubt the _Urca_ captain hammered into his crew, and the soldiers are acting in kind. They’re annoying each other and more likely to get in each other’s way. The soldiers will protect the beach in the event of an attack, but they won’t help otherwise.”

Flint just turned his attention from the beach to the Warship in the bay. “Only one man on watch in the rigging.”

Vane tipped his head to the side. “You think we can take him out? Keep the Man o’ War from firing on the beach as we take the gold?”

“No,” Flint answered bluntly. “Come on, I’ve seen enough.”

* * *

“The _Urca_ gold is secure,” Flint explained to the men about the soldiers and the guns and the number of both that meant an approach from the beach was out of the question.

“And even if it weren’t for the soldiers,” he continued. “Even if it weren’t for the guns, there’s a fucking Warship watching over every inch of the bay. A fucking Warship that’s already killed half our number and decimated the _Ranger._ A fucking Warship that will prevent any approach to the beach via the sea. There’s simply no way of stealing that gold.”

The men began to grumble, visions of riches slowly trickling out of their empty fingers.

Dufresne gritted his teeth, but there was a pleased look on his face, “So you’re telling us you can’t get the gold, the only thing standing between you and a noose?”

“That’s what I’m telling you,” Flint said, a slight smile on his face.

“Then why do you look so pleased?” DeGroot called out.

“Because there might be something else you can steal,” Flint offered, his eyes gleaming in that way that Silver was coming to regret. “The fucking Warship.”

DeGroot looked nonplussed, “What?”

But Vane looked eager at gleaning Flint’s meaning. “Too many soldiers on the beach.”

Flint nodded at him. “It means the watch on the ship is spare.

Rackham picked up the thread. “A few men could approach quietly, using the glare of the setting sun on water to evade the sentries.”

Billy straightened, an eager look on his face. “We’d only have to eliminate the watch on the main mast, allowing for the rest to come up fast in long ships.”

“The risk is all on those first men; too many and we may be seen, too few and we’ll not have the strength to overwhelm the watch.” Flint proposed. “I’ll volunteer in exchange for your pardon. And I suggest Billy and Vane accompany me.”

Silver lifted her head and saw Bonny do the same. She knew exactly what Flint was planning to do, and was going to be quietly taking out the watch in the rigging. From Vane’s bloodthirsty grin and Billy’s uncomfortable shrug, she knew they did, too. So did Rackham and Bonny, but as Jack wasn’t nearly as vicious of his Captain and wouldn’t be in the vanguard, Bonny felt no need to protest the bloody murder that was about to happen.

In all fairness, Silver wasn’t about to protest, either, but she knew that three wolves gone feral without an alpha were more likely to turn on friendly crew than allow them to join in the fray.

“And me.”

Flint turned to look at her in surprise. He started to protest but she just lowered her chin. “You’re taking me with you or I’ll leave you here and do it myself with Rackham and Bonny.”

The men were taken aback by her threat, eyes flicking between her and Flint as though expecting Flint to deny her like he’d denied Dufresne. But Silver knew what the men didn’t quite grasp; she wasn’t challenging Flint – she was giving him an option she could live with. One he could go along with to no detriment of his own plans, or she would forge ahead and do what he wanted anyway, just _without_ him. It was a fine splitting of hairs, but the distinction would allow him to feel in control rather than challenged, and from the huff he sent at her before turning away, she knew he agreed.

“Fine,” Flint motioned with his hand to Vane and Billy. “But we won’t wait for you.”

Billy and Vane both stripped off their shirts and strapped knives to their belts. As Flint looked for a knife to tuck into his trousers, Muldoon came toward Silver, her bow and arrows clutched in one hand.

“Found these on the deck,” Muldoon offered. “Be a shame to loose ‘em.”

Silver eyed the weapons and then thought about the long swim before her. “Will you keep them for me? Bring them with you”

“I will,” Anne Bonny said from her shoulder. “Got nothing else to carry.”

Silver met her eye for a minute and knew that she’d been forgiven for knocking the banshee unconscious before. She nodded and held out a pair of rolled up red woolen socks to Muldoon when he handed her weapons to Bonny. She grinned at him when he looked at her in question. “I’ll be wanting these back.”

Muldoon’s confusion cleared and he gave her a sharp nod before tucking the socks in his belt.

Bonny watched the short gunner walk away to help pack what they could carry and take with them. “The fuck was that?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Silver offered before eyeing the woman as she kept pace when Silver went for the disappearing back of Flint. “Walking with us?”

Bonny nodded. “Jack and I both. Someone’s gotta carry your boots back,” she explained.

Silver grinned and picked up the pace, catching up to Billy and Flint who followed Vane and Rackham, who had his captain’s belt and coat thrown over one shoulder, trudging ahead. She winced when her bare toes knocked into some sharp rocks in the loose sand.

Flint didn’t even glance over his shoulder. “I better not have to wrap your foot again.”

Silver was tempted to grab one of those rocks and chuck it at the Captain’s head. From the grin on Billy’s face as he looked back at her, her intentions were loud enough.

* * *

Despite Flint’s warning, the four of them kept close together as they swam toward the Warship, keeping the sun at their backs and ducking below the waves for long stretches when the watch in the rigging looked their way.

Being in the water with three werewolves was a lot like being in the water with land sharks; they moved like predators, sleek and powerful, their eyes gleaming with bloodlust. Only Billy’s gentle hand grasping hers and tugging her along those few extra yards behind him when her lungs screamed and her muscles burned let her control the instinctive fear-reaction that kept wanting to take hold when she glimpsed a bit of shining gold looking at her through the depths.

The keel of the Warship looked dark and huge in the waters before them, and each rose above the water in the lee of the hull where the watch couldn’t see them unless they leaned way out over the side. A gentle current kept wanting to push them up against the hull, and Silver winced when the slap of a wave pushed her close enough to be cut in the shoulder by a razor-sharp edge of a barnacle.

Flint went up the side first, pulling himself up hand over hand and walking up the side of the hull in bare feet. Vane was a step behind him. Silver took and breath and heaved herself up using just the strength of her arms. Halfway up her elbows wavered. Nearly to the top and her grip slipped and she fetched up hard against Billy’s chest and would have fallen and knocked into the side of the ship if hands hadn’t shot out the gun port and clamped over both their forearms.

She was hauled through and helped to a stand by Flint’s hand under her elbow, Billy nimbly crawling in after her. Silver wanted to glare at the three of them, but it was no use. She was strong, stronger than most women with wiry, tensile muscles rather than the bulk of someone like Billy. But most of her strength was in instinctually utilizing movement, the leverage of her joints and the strength of her thighs. Brute strength like the kind required of pulling one’s body up the side of a three-tiered ship after a several hundred yard swim – most of which was under water – taxed even her practiced endurance.

One glance in the room revealed rows of hammocks full of sleeping men. They’d come inside in the lower gun deck and would have to make their way aft to the gangway before climbing to the upper gun deck. Then someone would have to climb the buntlines to the main mast and get to the watchman all without letting him shout the alarm. Then, after signaling for their crew, the wolves would take care of as many as possible, relying solely on Silver to hold them back should they lose control.

As they made their way aft, Silver noticed the brass gleam of a boatswain’s whistle, something she hadn’t seen since disembarking the _Fair Carolina,_ the English merchant ship Flint had pirated in a effort to secure the _Urca’s_ schedule and started this whole endeavor.

She reached over the prone form of a sleeping man and just touched the whistle with her fingertips when Billy lunged up beside her to cover the man’s mouth and slit his throat with his claws.  
All four of them moved swiftly and silently on bare feet until they were in the gangway.

“You almost got us killed!”

She skittered back from Flint when he turned for her and lifted the whistle to explain, “It’s a boatswain’s whistle.”

Billy stepped in front of Flint when the man lifted his lip at her. “It makes sense to call the watch down than risk going up after him.”

“So who’s going up?” Vane asked.

Just then one of the men came down the stair and stopped in the room, turning to look when Flint lunged out of the shadows and wrenched his neck. Silver crouched down and started pulling off the man’s boots.

“Grab his jacket,” she explained when the three men just looked at her incredulously. “We’re barefoot, you two are shirtless, he’ll think something’s up.”

As Silver was the only one who was the right size and had the right coloring, it was determined she would climb the buntlines after calling the watch down. Flint would wait in the doorway to take care of the watchman before heading back down to the gun deck to finish off the crew with Vane and Billy who would transform and begin killing just as soon as Flint joined them.

It worked, right up until the watch realized that he hadn’t recognized Silver as he landed on the rail and tried to get a better look. Flint lunged out of the shadows and took him to the deck, wrestling him still and ripping his throat out. Shouts were heard from below deck as the noise had drawn attention and Billy and Vane were spotted.

Silver turned away from the deck after watching Flint transform and lope down toward the fight on all fours. Looking out at the edge of the bay, she spotted the flash of a lens and knew the men were waiting just around the rocks. She waved at them, only stopping when the prow of the first longboat edged out into the waves.

They were on their way.

It was a long few minutes while she tried not to listen to the screams and howls coming from below the deck – she could well imagine the carnage three vengeful werewolves would extract when let loose – as she watched the shore for any sign of alarm. She kept a weather eye on the distance between the longboats and, when they came without shouting distance, she blew the boatswain whistle high and hard; a single nearly soundless pulse that alerted the wolves below of the approaching crew and the need to hide their baser natures from those not aware of the supernatural. She noted the way both Rackham and Bonny on the second boat flinched at the sound, but also noted with interest the way Beauclerc, Joji and Muldoon jerked in pain at the high pitch not able to be heard by human ears alone.

The beach was suddenly swarming with activity; one of the watch must have seen the longboats and guessed correctly that the Warship was at a disadvantage. The Spanish were in boats and rowing hard, realizing too late the futility of trying to warn the watch by the time the crew swarmed up and over the side, swords out and pistols at the ready. It was almost comical to watch them realize that there was no one left to fight.

The sight of Flint, Vane and Billy coming up from below, bare-chested and absolutely dripping with blood and gore was a sight she was sure would fuel the legends told by the men for years to come.

Silver had slithered down the lines in time to see Dufresne come over the rail, spot the Captain and Billy and come to a startled stop.

Flint’s bright – though thankfully not glowing – gaze pierced the Quartermaster. “Get the ship moving before they have time to turn the cannon on the beach, Mister Dufresne.”

DeGroot began shouting commands to drop the canvas while Billy got the men pulling up the anchor.

“The cannon are set!” Dufresne called, refusing to look at where Flint was standing on the quarterdeck, Vane casually leaning on the rail beside him. “Set sail and get us out of here, Mister DeGroot!”

Canvas dropped. Ropes were pulled taut. The ship heaved beneath their feet as it caught the wind.

Silver slowly made her way up the stairs to the quarterdeck, acknowledging pats and looks from some of the men thanking her for the good luck in taking a prize ship without losing another man. She came to a stop beside the Captain and wrinkled her nose at the hot scent of iron and blood that covered him.

He smirked at her, “Too much for your delicate sensibilities?”

Silver stared at him. “You have something on your face.”

“You shit,” he mumbled.


	2. X.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things I felt needed to be pointed out for this chapter:
> 
> One; James McGraw was a sarcastic little shit with a very dry sense of humor. It's readily apparent in the way he behaves toward Thomas as they slowly become friends - even their first meeting, James snarked at the lord about his apparent lack of education.
> 
> Two: James Flint values loyalty and honesty above almost everything else. He stuck with Gates for ten years and only became violent toward the man when Gates threatened to destroy Flint. He keeps coming back to Miranda despite their apparent conflict of interest - even putting his own ambitions aside with a pledge to turn himself in (I don't think I can emphasize that enough - he promised to **TURN HIMSELF IN AFTER SWEARING IT WAS ENGLAND THAT NEEDED _HIS_ PARDON**) just to further her agenda with Ashe.
> 
> And those two things are his _soft underbelly_. 
> 
> *eep*

_**1715 – West Indies** _

First thing first; the blood and bodies would need to be cleared before they started to stink.

Being pirates, they had no qualms about looting the bodies for clothing that fit, jewels, coin, trinkets – anything that could and would fetch a price in the market at Nassau was thrown into a pile in the middle of the foredeck. The bodies themselves, once stripped of anything valuable or useful, were tossed over the side with little regard to the person they used to be. Pirates only cared about their own, after all.

Then bucket after bucket of clean seawater was hauled up over the rail and splashed onto wood to wash away what they could. Not being particularly fastidious, the only place any of them bent down to actually scrub was in the galley and in the doctor’s quarters – though the later was stained red from too many shipboard surgeries to count.

At the rear of the ship, Billy, Vane and Flint did their own bit of washing, using a few shirts turned rags to scrub at the blood gone tacky all over their faces, chests and backs.

Silver and Bonny just stood at the rail overlooking the quarterdeck to watch.

When Rackham climbed the stair, he stopped just as Billy poured a bucket over his head, the water glistening as it splashed down bulging muscles and sluiced along his trousers, making them hug powerful thighs and shapely calves.

“For fuck sake,” Rackham hissed. “Must you _both_ ogle them?”

Silver just nodded while Anne Bonny told him to “Fuck off.”

The man crossed his arms and came to rest beside them, ignoring the cheeky grin Vane sent him as he worked a particularly stubborn bit of gore from between his toes. “Anne I can understand,” Rackham started, tilting his chin toward Silver. “But I never took you for an admirer of virile young manhood. Although even I can admit that Billy is quiet pretty to look at.”

“Hmm,” Distracted as she was by the sight of Flint pushing the hem of his trousers low over his hips to wipe off the blood that had seeped through, she didn’t watch her words as closely as she maybe should have. “Wouldn’t really matter if I was.”

“Oh?” Rackham asked, perking up like a dog who caught the scent. “Word was you and he shared quite the encounter with the whores last we were on Nassau. Could it be they got it wrong?”

A bucket landed on the deck particularly hard and all eyes were drawn to Billy, whose face had gone completely blank. Without a word he stalked off the poop deck and down the stairs to the quarterdeck where the men had reverently laid out some relatively clean clothing in sizes that would fit the three men.

Silver sent Rackham a glare before following him down. As she left, Anne punched Rackham hard enough to make the man yelp and Vane let loose a low chuckle at their antics.

By the time she reached the quarterdeck, Billy was ducking inside the Captain’s cabin to change. Not particularly reserved about nakedness on a ship full of men, she could only conclude that he’d retreated there for emotional reasons. She started to give him a minute and then remembered what he said about bodies, and entered without bothering to knock.

He was standing with his back to her at the desk, a pile of dry clothing in front of him and a rag in his hand that he was using to wipe the moisture from his skin. And he was utterly, completely bare.

She tried to ignore his nudity as best she could but – fuck it, she was a woman after all – and he _was_ pretty to look at and he’d _said_ he didn’t mind. “I’m sorry,” she started. “I shouldn’t have said anything."

Billy sighed and finished drying his legs, making one last swipe at his crotch and armpits before pulling out the simple, undyed linen pants that were the smallclothes of the time. They laced low on his hips and clung lovingly to buttock and thigh. He was reaching for a pair of dark blue trousers before he answered her.

“You know I don’t really care about that.”

Silver bit her lip and ashamedly looked away. “I know.”

“It’s not what you said,” Billy explained as he pulled the trousers on and hopped to get the soft worn leather up over his hips. “It’s not even what Jack said.”

Silver lifted a brow and looked back at him, finding it much easier to focus on his face now that the male bits of him were covered. “Then what, Billy? Because despite what you and I _know,_ those four think you’ve stormed off and I’ve followed after like you’re my lover and I’ve hurt your feelings.”

The skin between his brows puckered in confusion and it was such an adorable expression that she just wanted to _cuddle_ the man despite the fact that he’d been a vicious killer werewolf on a bloody tear less than two hours ago.

“What?”

Silver heaved a sigh. “Put a shirt on.”

Billy did so, pulling on a light blue linen shirt that laced halfway up the front and pulled a little tight over his shoulders, but otherwise fit him well, that adorable look of confusion on his face the whole time.

“What, exactly, upset you?” Silver made sure to look him in the eye as she asked the question.

He held her gaze for a second before dipping his chin and answering in a low tone as he tucked in the shirt and secured it all with his sash and belt, “What we shared that night meant a great deal to me. More than I think you realize.”

“Oh, Billy,” Silver sighed.

“No,” Billy lifted his head and met her eyes, holding her gaze as he tried to make her understand just how important being accepted for who and what he was without judgment meant to him. “I don’t think you understand just what-”

“Billy,” Silver interrupted, the sternness of her voice causing the man to snap his mouth closed. “Do you know just how many men have laughed in my face when I gave them orders as a woman? How many times I’ve had to _beat_ into them that I’m capable? That a hole between my legs doesn’t mean a hole in my head?”

He scrunched his nose, “What does that-?”

“I don’t think you understand what it means to be accepted as a woman, one who you actually _listen_ to, take direction from, look for and respect. I don’t think you understand just what that means to me to be accepted for who and what I am without the pretense of my sex or the expectation of favors owed for keeping your silence.”

They stared at each other for a bare minute so that she saw the moment he _got it._ She wouldn’t use what she knew about him, _ever,_ because he didn’t understand why he could use what he knew about her.

Without giving her time to react, he stepped forward and enfolded her in his embrace, wrapping arms around her shoulders and tucking her head under his chin. It took a few heartbeats for her body to realize that this was a gentle hug and not an attack. When it did she melted into his embrace, looping her arms around his waist and leaning against him, letting his strength bolster her tired and bruised body.

It was that moment that the door burst open and Flint walked in, a handful of clothes in one hand. Neither Silver nor Billy bothered moving beyond turning their heads to look.

Flint stopped at the threshold his face a flash of _something_ – surprise, anger, frustration – for a moment, settling into blankness as he assessed them both and they way they comfortably stood together before he smirked. “Am I interrupting?”

“No,” they both answered in tandem.

Flint just rolled his eyes and closed the door behind him. Then without a by-your-leave he untied and dropped his wet trousers then peeled out of his smallclothes.

Silver’s eyes widened at the sheer amount of flesh on display before turning her face into Billy’s chest and giving a faint aggrieved wail. Billy chuckled and rocked her slightly.

“I’ve quartered Vane’s men in the officer’s rooms below.” Flint started updating Billy as if this was a normal occurrence. “I suspect having them bunk with the _Walrus_ crew will only cause problems in the long run.”

“Probably best,” Billy agreed.

“I did invite Vane, Jack and Anne to bunk here in the captain’s quarters," This was said more tentatively, as though he was asking for reassurance. And it was such an unexpected thought that Silver lifted her head to look at the Captain. Thankfully, he’d pulled on dry smallclothes and was eeling into a pair of soft black, leather pants that looked to have belonged to the Captain or Lieutenant of the Warship.

“You think there will be a problem with Anne?” Billy asked.

Flint tipped his head in thought but Silver could tell that hadn’t occurred to him.

“You think there will be a problem with Rackham.”

“He’s notoriously protective of her,” Flint agreed. “When they met, it was because he slit a man’s throat for beating her.”

A wolf who dealt death for a banshee; of course she would follow such a man. That piece of information slotted right into place with what she knew of the pair. She made a mental note not to come between them.

She sighed and eased back from Billy, thinking of everything she would need to arrange and do before night fell, and absentmindedly patted Billy’s chest and shoulder when he hooked a finger in her belt and gave a playful tug before letting go.

“Is this something the crew needs to be told?” Flint asked, his eyes darting between them as he shuffled his dark red shirt – which had miraculously survived the Spanish bloodbath only because he’d thrown if off before heading below – up his forearms before pulling it over his head.

“No,” Silver and Billy answered simultaneously again.

Flint huffed and started pulling on a pair of boots. “Either way, Silver, you might want to bunk in here as well.”

“What?” she lifted her head from swatting at Billy’s hand grabbing the ends of her sash. “Why?”

“Vane’s aware,” he nodded at her. “Hard to ignore the breast band when you’re soaked to the skin.”

Billy stiffened. “You think he’d tell the crew?”

“He’s not one to see sex as a hindrance,” Flint shook his head. “Look at the way he treats Anne Bonny. Hell, he followed Eleanor when she told him to turn against Blackbeard.”

“Then what-?” Silver started to ask but suddenly realized what he was driving at. “You think he’ll say something and give it away.”

Flint shrugged. “Unthinkingly, unknowingly, unintentionally. But eventually it will get out. There are very few secrets on board a ship. I would know.”

Silver sighed, “Bunking in here might mitigate any unwarranted reactions, but it may also cause those questions to be asked in the first place. I can take care of myself.” Before Billy or Flint opened their mouths to protest, Silver continued. “Besides, the less that shit Dufresne can use against me, the better.”

That caused both wolves to still.

Billy looked to Flint for the first time in a long time. “He’s going to be a problem.”

Flint stared at him, acknowledging the silent question for what it was. “I’ll handle it.”

“We are getting rid of him before coming back for the gold, yes?” Silver asked, then looked at them both as if they were stupid when they just stared at her incredulously. “Please don’t pretend the gold and getting back to it before the Spanish recover it is not the first thing on either of your minds.”

Billy didn’t say anything but Flint eyed her carefully. “You don’t have to risk yourself. There are easier ways to earn money,” he started to offer. “Other crews-”

Silver just crossed her arms. “I don’t want to _earn_ money. I don’t want to join another crew. If we’re being honest I don’t want to be on this crew a day longer than is absolutely necessary because I don’t want to be a pirate. I’m not interested in the life. I’m not interested in the fighting. I’m not interested in the ships. I don’t care much for the sea while we’re on the subject. But being a pirate on this crew for a little while longer offers me an opportunity I don’t believe I can find anywhere else on earth; one big prize, and with it freedom… from the water, from hunger, from wages… from excruciatingly heavy expectations.”

Both men were quiet for a long minute before there was a knock at the door that broke the reverie. Rackham and Bonny came in carrying hammocks followed by Vane. Billy and Silver both moved for the window seats behind the captain’s desk. They quickly and quietly set up their beds and then gathered around the desk.

“So what’s the plan?” Vane spun a chair around and crossed his arms over the back as he sat.

Flint leaned back against the desk, arms and ankles crossed as he eyed them. “Plan?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t have a plan,” Vane growled. “You always have a plan. It’s fucking annoying.”

Rackham appropriated the second chair, leaving room for Bonny to perch on an arm, “You are rather known for your aforethought, Captain Flint. I think that’s fair to say between the six of us.”

Flint lifted a corner of his lip, “So what is it you think I’m planning to do?”

“I think you intend to return to that beach armed to the teeth and seize every last ounce of gold, and I think you plan on using this ship to do it,” Vane uttered, an eager look in his eyes. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

So, like they had the night before attempting to take the _Urca,_ they traded ideas back and forth, brainstorming scenarios and situations and how to handle each of them.

* * *

“Should someone include your quartermaster?” Rackham asked at one point after they’d pulled up charts of the Florida coast to argue over tides.

“Fuck that fuckshite,” Vane snarled.

“Eloquently put, Charles,” Rackham drawled while Bonny and Silver sniggered.

“Shut up, Jack,” Vane sighed.

Flint just rolled his eyes. “I’m handling it.”

* * *

“You know the men are already calling this ship the _Bloody Revenge,”_ Vane murmured quietly.

It had gotten late, and after Silver and Billy fetched bowls of the pork and potato stew Randall had prepared, Rackham and Bonny had curled up together in one of the hammocks, Billy took another. Silver stayed on the uncomfortable window seat, determined to find her bunk in the galley sometime before dawn. But drawn to the quiet voice of her captain, she couldn’t make herself leave just yet, though her eyes were at half-mast and someone had thrown a woolen blanket over her at some point when they’d closed between conversations.

A flash of white teeth was all Flint showed of his amusement at the crew’s dedication.

“With a ship like this,” Vane continued, a wistful note in his voice. “You’d be invincible on the seas.”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t want her,” Flint leaned back in his chair, ignoring the sharp look Vane gave him. “I want the _Walrus._ I know how she moves, how she sounds, how she smells. I know how to keep her afloat when she ought to sink, how she’s hurting before she keens. She’s my home more than anyplace has been in the last ten years. But I wouldn’t trust the _Revenge_ to just anyone,” Flint suddenly leaned forward, his face sharp and predatory. “She took the _Ranger_ from you. When we come back for the gold, help me get the _Walrus_ seaworthy and I won’t fight you for the _Revenge,_ Charles. Give me back my home and she’s yours.”

Vane stared at Flint hard before he spit in his hand and offered it to the other man, “You have a deal.”

Flint’s eyes blazed bright hellish red-orange.

* * *

In the following days, the push-pull of power between a Captain and Quartermaster was no more obvious than the interaction between Flint and Dufresne. When they began loosing their wind the next morning, Flint pulled Dufresne aside to have a long chat. When Dufresne emerged and conversed with DeGroot, the two called out a course that would hug the coast and take them through a popular shipping route. From the way Flint just shook his head and walked away in apparent disgust, the men surmised that had been the exact _opposite_ of what Flint had suggested to their Quartermaster.

Some men cheered the situation, for it was proof at last that there was someone to curb Flint’s tyrannical tendencies. Others, like Palmer, found Silver in a quiet moment to relay their concerns and continued support.

“Here,” Palmer thrust out his hand.

“What’s this?” Silver asked, taking the strip of thin leather cord with more than a dozen beads, each no bigger than her thumbnail and made of sea glass, turquoise, coral and silver, and each of them carved with fantastical sea creatures. “I can’t take this-”

“It were Oates’,” he said sadly. “He would've wanted you to have it, the way you tried to save ‘im an’ all.”

And Silver didn’t argue because she knew the man was barely holding back tears as it was. So she wrapped the cord twice around her wrist, offering one end to Palmer to help her tie it. He gripped her wrist in both hands when it was done.

“You’re a good lass,” Palmer whispered. “He’d be glad to know it came to you.”

Silver froze, her eyes wide. “Palmer…”

“I won’t tell,” he reassured quickly, leaning close so as not to be overheard. “None of us will. We know too well we’d all be dead if it wasn’t for you, that Oates might still be alive if Dufresne had let the boats come hours earlier.”

“None of-” She bit off the words, understanding very quickly just who he meant. Something Flint said the day before about her breast band being obvious when she was soaked rang in her mind. Eight of them had come out of the water that day, including Flint and herself; Crisp, Sean Williamson, Vincent, Wallis, Palmer and Oates. Palmer met her gaze and gave her hand a squeeze before he let go and walked off.

By the end of the day, the rest of them had approached in one manner or another. Wallis, like Palmer and Oates was a rigger and good with rope and ties. He taught her how to tie a good, strong knot very quickly, but also, and maybe more importantly, how to _untie_ them using only her teeth. The fact that several of the men who wandered over while he spoke and benefited from this lesson didn’t cheapen the fact that Wallis had offered in the first place. Vincent was a canvas man, capable of mending tears in the sails while hanging by a rope bent over the yardarm, and while she stood at the rail he came up and, without a word said, stitched the tear in her shirt she’d received boarding the Spanish Warship while she stared at him. When he was done, he bent and cut the thread with his teeth, gave her shoulder a squeeze, and moved onto the next man asking for his clothes to be mended. Even Williamson, who already thought she was magical having given her his knife after the fight with Singleton, approached just before she was helping Randall ready dinner and asked if she’d like him to oil the leather scabbard and her leather vest while he was at it.

“Working with my hands calms me,” he explained when she tried to protest. “So really, you’d be doing me a favor.”

He didn’t even seem to mind when several of the men who heard him say that started throwing their leather bits and bobs at him as well. Being on the gun crew with Crisp, their days were spent training hard for a few hours with long stretches of nothing but idleness between. After dinner, in the quiet hours before the men turned in, Crisp sat beside Williamson and, while Sean worked the leather, he took a whetstone and sharpened her knife.

The other men noticed the behavior and said nothing because they benefited from it, but she was aware of a noticeable shift in attitude from the crew. Where before most had been wary and downright aggressive toward her, now they remembered how she fought for them against Dufresne, how she commanded both Billy and Flint, and watched as those she’d helped – Crisp and Wallis especially, as they were well regarded by the crew – quietly cared for their albatross and everyone gained.

Silver just sat in the back of the group while the men worked, feeling as if the wind had been knocked out of her. It was something she’d witnessed only once before; this strange loyalty of a disparate group of men for their leader – in her grandmother. That woman was a fierce warrior, wearing men’s armor into raids with her long blond hair flying behind her like a banner. She’d come home many times smeared with gore and soot, wounded or otherwise, and her men had loved her for it. She didn’t think the crew of the _Walrus_ loved her any more than her grandmother’s men loved the wild child she’d been or forgave her for her mother’s sins, but here among these strangers branded unredeemable monsters was a kind of easy acceptance simply for the casual care she’d shown them; something Silver had not found among the noble men and women she’d grown up with.

Just before the call for ‘Lights Out!’ was raised, she spotted Flint in the shadows by the galley entrance, his eyes glittering as he took in the genial mood and they way the men had arranged themselves around her. When he noticed her eyes on him, he gave her a slow nod and walked back out.

* * *

“Sails! Starboard bow!”

The cry came from above and the men spilled out of the galley.

“What is she?”

“English colors,” Logan informed, handing the glass to Dufresne. “Inbound from Kingston. Sugar merchants most likely.”

DeGroot turned to grin up at them, “How do you presume an English merchantman will react when being hailed by a Spanish Warship?”

“Only one way to find out,” Dufresne lowered the glass.

“I advise you against taking this course, Mister Dufresne.”

DeGroot scoffed, “Only because the idea of this crew taking a prize under Dufresne’s command will prove to the men-”

“Taking _any_ prize under these circumstances is unlikely,” Flint interrupted. “Doesn’t matter whose command. And if you do this thing,” Flint stepped forward, leaning both hands on the rails to impose himself without being threatening. “You’ll do it without me leading.”

Dufresne blinked at him, “You’re refusing to fight?”

“I’ll defend this ship and all who sail her with my life,” Flint warned without raising his voice. “But I advised you not to take this course. I advised you to avoid the temptation for the good of your men, and if you try to take a prize today, Mister Quartermaster, it will be without me in vanguard.”

“Then we do this without you,” Dufresne threatened before raising his voice, “Anyone up for a little hunting?”

The men shouted their approval and started making preparations, pulling out cases of unfamiliar pistols and barrels of shot and powder mixed in unfamiliar portions. Muldoon muttered as he split the bag on one and stuck his finger in to test the consistency. He wasn’t happy and he warned the men that the powder would “Come off a bit hotter than you lot are used to.”

One of the few things the men _were_ comfortable with was the cannon; Flint had them drilling three times a day for the past two days until they knew the heft and weight of the eighteen pound guns, could swab the throat and rack a load without hesitation, could pull the ropes in three heaves without the stuttered shock of unfamiliar weight. There were over one hundred cannon on board, and less than one forth the men needed to man one broadside. They had plenty of powder and shot but were hopelessly undermanned and unprepared.

But a pirate wasn’t a pirate if he wasn’t trying to take a prize.

So Flint saw to the gun crews, nodding to both Billy and Silver when they looked to him instead of Dufresne. Billy found the ropes and tri-hooks and made sure the men knew they’d be jumping down from a greater height than they were used to. Silver found Beauclerc and made sure he and his three long guns were prepped with enough shot and powder to last a siege before joining the Captain on the stairs to the foredeck, her arrows in a brand new leather quiver on her thigh and her bow oiled and strung tight in her hand.

Vane and his men stayed on the rails opposite the _Revenge’s_ leading side, armed but out of the way. When one of his men moved to help, Vane shook his head at him, “You move, you die.”

“But Captain-”

“Not our prize,” Vane explained, meeting Flint’s eyes. “Not our problem.”

Flint nodded at him, but didn’t otherwise comment.

Silver came to lean against rail beside Flint. “I don’t need to explain to you the stakes of what happens if Mister Dufresne is successful in taking this prize?”

Flint’s expression turned mildly amused before he started explaining, “Took me awhile to get a feel for this part of it. Raise the black too soon and the prize will run. Raise it too late and he’ll induce panic and a greater chance of resistance. You gotta show your colors at _just_ the right moment to get them to strike theirs.”

They watched as tensions rose, and about four hundred yards out, Dufresne gave the order. Flint’s face when they raised the black – _his_ black – was oddly pleased.

When the merchant ship struck their colors, there was an audible release of breath and cheers from the men.

As they came up alongside the merchant ship, Silver marveled anew at just how small the galleon looked when floating beside the frigate. Nearly half her size, the merchant galleon had a full complement of crew, over sixty men. As the vanguard swarmed over the side – not quite twenty men strong – Vane, Rackham and Bonny stepped up to rest against the rail around the foremast to watch the goings on carefully.

“This is the most dangerous part. Look at him,” Flint nodded toward the Merchant Captain, ignoring the way Vane smirked while Rackham and Bonny leaned into each other. “His mind is drowning in questions. Did I make the right decision? How am I going to explain to my proprietors that I gave up their goods without a fight? What kind of man am I?”

As Flint talked, Vane slowly lost his smirk and both Rackham and Bonny turned to look, listening closely.

“You hope he has answers to those questions. You hope that he can reassure himself that he made the right decision. You hope that the thing he thought he was surrendering to, the thing that drove fear into his heart the moment he saw the black, that that thing is nowhere to be found.”

And Silver understood why he was pleased when Dufresne raised _Flint’s_ flag.

“The men in these waters are hard men. They don’t fear ships. They don’t fear guns. They don’t fear swords.”

Silver frowned, “Then what do they fear?”

Before Flint answered, the men on the merchant ship turned. It was a bloody mess as the men retreated under fire. Beauclerc and Silver laid out cover fire for the men leaping the divide and climbing the rigging, but more than a handful were lost as Dufresne fumbled aboard and hesitated too long to act.

Silver ducked as a pistol _whizzed_ by her left ear, but Flint, didn’t even flinch. He charged forward and got the panicking men’s attention. “Pull away! Lift the anchor!”

“What are you doing?” Dufresne demanded. “We need to get men with muskets into the rigging to suppress their fire-”

“We've lost the day,” DeGroot argued. “We don't have enough manpower to retake her. We must away. You must give the order.”

“We have to sink her,” Flint explained calmly. “Can’t let her just escape. You have to sink that ship for if a single one of those men lives to tell the tale no one will surrender before that flag again.”

Then Flint waited. He waited while men were being killed and DeGroot and Logan argued about who was in charge. He waited while Dufresne hesitated. And then he waited no longer.

He turned his head without looking away from Dufresne and charged Logan to, “Cut us loose. Get us underway.”

Flint turned away and walked calmly to the rail of the quarterdeck overlooking the upper gun deck. “Gun crews at the ready,” and then waited again until Billy looked up at him, ready. “Fire!”

* * *

It was late before Dufresne finally worked up the nerve to confront the Captain. Flint didn’t make it easy for him; he’d joined Silver in the Galley, sitting slightly behind her and Billy as they sat amidst the men calmly toiling away after a full meal soothed their tempers. Vane’s small group had joined then, keeping to themselves in one corner and being surprisingly circumspect. They were all listening to Vincent tell a harrowing tail of escaping the bedroom and angry husband and father of a mother and daughter pair he’d spent the night entertaining in Tortuga. The men laughed uproariously as he explained how he’d grabbed the wrong pile of clothing on his way out the window and had to return to his ship and crew in a thin chemise and a lacy pair of bloomers. Even Flint cracked a smile at that.

But all went quiet when Dufresne entered the room, his eyes an obvious red and his breathing erratic.

“I suppose you warned me,” Dufresne murmured once there was silence in the galley. “Didn’t you? To avoid that course through the shipping lane. Perhaps it was my hubris that drove me to it, to show you I had it in me to lead.”

Flint turned to rest his back against the table, his arms open to either side and his legs crossed at the ankles, the picture of a man who’d already won.

Dufresne’s face hardened. “As I stand here, I’m forced to consider another possibility. That course we charted, perhaps none of us would have thought of it all had you not raised it in the first place. That you orchestrated it all; the death, destruction, all to achieve my humiliation. Is it possible a man could do such a thing?”

Had they been alone, Flint may have spared the man’s pride and said nothing. But as he felt the startled eyes of his crew upon him, Flint felt the need to defend himself, if nothing else.

He sighed and leaned forward. “I have no control over the men that is not given to me. I certainly have no control over a crew I _don’t_ captain. To presume I orchestrated that rebellion and those deaths is to give me too much credit, Mister Dufresne.”

Dufresne sneered, “None of this would have happened if you’d done you job as Captain-”

“My _job_ as Captain is to see the bigger picture, to know when to return home and when to fight for a prize,” Flint rejoined in a voice rumbling with menace. “Your _job_ as Quartermaster is to fight for the lives and livelihoods of each and every one of your men. Most of the time, those two goals align; it’s what’s makes a successful crew. Gates knew how to do his job. He knew how to curb my grander schemes while caring for the crew. It’s what allowed he and I to work so well together for ten years – longer than any other Captain and Quartermaster in Nassau. I know how to do _my_ job, pushing this crew to be better, faster, stronger, to take the prize no one thinks we can win. But if you’re too busy fighting me and chasing your own renown instead of doing _your_ job, then what good are you, _Mister_ Dufresne?”

For a moment it looked like Dufresne would continue the confrontation. But after a moment, he tightened his jaw and about-faced.

It was a long moment of men muttering amongst themselves before Silver caught Crisp and Williamson’s eye. A meaningful look and a quick, whispered conversation between the two of them and Sean was launching into a story about the chicken he stole as a boy from his neighbors, who his mother hated, only to get a beating after his mother realized he’d stolen the rooster. It broke the tense mood and distracted the men enough to let them settled down for the night.

As Flint left, he caught Billy’s eye and gave him a nod. He’d handled it. Billy, for a wonder, lowered his chin and nodded right back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I genuinely love you [Olorisstra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olorisstra/pseuds/Olorisstra).
> 
> *hugs*


	3. XI.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Return to Nassau.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one took me a bit because there was a lot of backstory to go over and over and over. Hope you're as surprised as I was by the direction this took.

_**1715 – Nassau, New Providence Island** _

The next morning, the problem of sailing a Spanish Warship into the bay that was protected by a fort which would no doubt fire upon them when sighting the giant red crosses on their sails reared its ugly head. Silver helped Randall distribute food in the morning, listening to the crewmen complain and whine about this and that and realized that when she looked for Billy he was no where to be found. Neither, for that matter, were Flint, Dufresne, or Vane and his two shadows.

She knew there could only be one place all of them would gather, so she made her way through the galley, soothing tempers and checking in on those she knew were keeping their eye on her, then walked out and up to the quarterdeck to find Vane’s crew lounging alone on the poop deck and the door to the Captain’s cabin closed.

Silver sighed and steeled herself for whatever could be happening there, knocked on the door and didn’t wait to let herself in. Which was good, because she wasn’t sure they would have heard her over the shouting.

“You need men to sail a ship in consort!” Vane barked.

“We’ll find men in Nassau!” Flint snarled right back. The two were nearly in each other’s faces

Silver glanced around the room and sidled over to where Billy was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed as he watched the pair of captains with a wary eye. Rackham was watching like it was the most entertaining thing he’d seen all week and Bonny was just sharpening one of her long blades. Off to the side, part of the discussion but obviously separate, Dufresne eyed the two captains with one hand on the butt of the pistol in his belt like he was waiting for one to tear the throat out of the other so he could shoot the victor in the face.

“What started this?” Silver whispered to Billy.

The boatswain automatically made room for her by dropping one arm over her shoulders. She ignored Dufresne’s disgusted look and leaned against Billy’s side, knowing that the crew had already accepted their closeness over the last few days. She didn’t much care what Dufresne thought, but she wasn’t about to ignore Billy’s desire for physical comfort just because the quartermaster didn’t like the idea of them fucking.

It was Rackham who answered her, tilting his head back and to the side from his place lounging sideways across the other chair. “The issue of reinforcements came up when Flint rightly demanded the men remain on the ship to secure information about the _Urca_ gold.”

“The men aren’t going to like that,” Silver murmured.

“As I said,” Dufresne repeated with the air of a man saying something for the fourth or fifth time. “My advice has yet to be heeded by any of those present.”

Rackham eyed Dufresne like a particularly nasty piece of rotted meat. “Your mouth is talking. You might want to look to that.”

Silver snorted at that and opened her mouth to ask why the issue of reinforcements necessitated an argument when Vane shouted, “I know where to find the men we need!”

“Tell me you’re not talking about _him!”_ Flint slammed a fist on the desk. “He’s the _reason_ we have rules about hunting on- at certain times!”

She caught his near slip, but didn't understand the look that passed between the two men. But it was something Silver couldn’t ignore, “You have rules?”

The look Flint gave her then was easy enough to read; she could practically hear the ‘ _Don’t be a fucking idiot_ ’ in her head as if he'd said it aloud. She shrugged and looked away, miffed at him.

“We need the men, he has plenty of men, and you won’t have to worry about the _Urca_ information or anything else spilling onto Nassau sand,” argued Vane who seemed to realize that he sounded like he was pleading instead of telling. “I'm going, just as soon as I can arrange a small skiff.”

Flint stared him down, inexplicably angry.

And Silver needed to know why. "Explain to me why this is a bad idea.”

Flint turned his gaze to her, allowing Vane to breathe and turn away from the other wolf. She was aware of the breaths taken by Billy, Rackham and Bonny, as though she had somehow defused the tension in the air simply by asking the question, though she wasn’t sure how.

Flint flicked his gaze at Dufresne and then answered, “Later,” before he turned back to Vane. “If you’re doing this-”

“I’m going,” Vane repeated, not backing down an inch though he looked almost remorseful – and frustrated that he was feeling sorry. “Give me three days.”

Flint stared hard at him for a minute before finally nodding. “You’ve got two. We set sail on the third.”  
Vane spun away from Flint. “Jack-!”

“I know,” Rackham sighed. “Keep the men in line while you’re gone, no need to worry about that.”

“Anne,” Vane smirked. “Keep Jack in line.”

Bonny ignored Rackham’s squawk of outrage, “Yes, Captain.”

“After our departure,” Flint turned to address Dufresne. “Please ensure that mine is the only longboat that ferries anyone to and from the island.”

Dufresne shook his head, “The men will resist-”

“Then you resist them right back.” Flint’s tone was implacable. “They all know that we’re headed back for the _Urca’s_ gold. They all know where it is. They all know that it’s defenses are weakened. We simply cannot allow that information leaking out onto the beach. Or let them go if you like,” Flint straightened, his voice lifting from the gravel tone he used when serious. “To whatever extent you’re comfortable competing with a dozen other crews to retrieve that gold.”

Before anyone could say another word, the cry of _“Land ho!”_ roused the men and they spilled onto the decks.

“Silver,” Flint called and waited until she was standing alongside him. “Pick two men you know can be discreet. We need someone to go back to Division Bay to watch the Spanish soldiers.”

“All right,” Silver tilted her head. “Easy enough. Now give me something hard.”

“What makes you think I need anything else?”

Silver just gave him a look then.

Flint eyed her for a moment before he heaved a sigh. “Dufresne’s not wrong about the men fighting him. They’ll expect some time in town before we depart. I want them contented as possible when I inform them otherwise. So I need you to get supplies to help keep them on the ship.”

“Billy and I can get what we need.”

Flint gave a shake of his head. “Pick someone else you know you can trust to keep his mouth shut. Billy needs to stay with the crew. They like him, trust him. He’ll have a easier time keeping the men corralled than Dufresne will.”

“Is that under control?” Silver asked quietly.

“As much as any learned man can be put under control,” Flint muttered. “He’s dangerous and I’ll keep a weather eye on him, but I don’t think he’d betray the crew.”

“You, on the other hand…”

“Oh, he’ll stab me in the back first chance he gets,” Flint lifted a corner of his lip, mildly amused at the thought. “But he’s more like to leave once he finds himself a captain capable of appreciating what few leadership talents he’s managed to cobble together. And then his loyalties will shift and I’d like this whole debacle behind us before that happens.”

Silver thinned her lips, but didn’t say anything to that. she would just make sure it would never come to that.

The ship anchored out of sight of the bay and the men prepared to tent on the beach. The first order of business was rigging a longboat for Vincent and Nicholas to sail back up to the Florida coast so that they could watch the Spanish soldiers.

“You understand what I’m asking you to do?”

“Go back and watch the gold?” Vincent asked.

“Keep watch on the Spanish _soldiers_ who are watching the gold,” Flint stated. “Return to Division Bay, approach from the south, stay inland and out of sight with a constant watch on the beach until we arrive. We should be no more than two days behind you, at which point I’ll need to know everything about their routines, schedule, watch strength. Then we’ll reconnoiter, plan our final assault and secure the gold. Is that clear?”

Both men nodded with glazed expressions on their faces. Silver put her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing, knowing she’d likely have to explain it again, in simpler terms before they left.

To her surprise, Vane looked after them with a gently amused expression. “I’ve got these two,” then he lifted his chin toward Flint. “You handle that one.”

Silver lifted a brow, “You think I handle him?”

“Better than any of us have in years,” Vane grumbled.

She started to respond but stopped, not sure what she would say. Instead she motioned to Palmer and, doing her best to ignore Vane’s amused laughter in her wake, climbed down into the longboat headed to Nassau. As soon as the ship hit sand Flint hopped out, splashing through the gentle waves in the bay and leaving Silver and Palmer to pull the boat far enough that it wouldn’t drift. As she caught up to the captain he handed back her quickly written shopping list.

“It’s not enough,” he stated.

“It’s all we have funds for,” she argued.

“Then less flour and more rum,” he waved his hand as if done with that issue. “The Spanish soldiers guarding the Hulk are four days removed by longboat from St. Augustine. By my reckoning we’ve got a week, two at the most, before King Philip takes his gold back. There’s no time for delay.”

As they neared the tents and semi-permanent huts made from driftwood and wreck siding, they kept away from the main footpaths, skirting the crowds that would no doubt be looking for Flint’s – and the gold’s – arrival.

Flint passed a letter of mark to both Silver and Palmer as they were getting sent after different things; Palmer to the armorer for the few provisions the _Revenge_ couldn’t provide, and Silver to the food. “Get the supplies as quickly as you can and meet me back here. I’ll engage Captain Hornigold and make way for the ship to enter the bay.”

Palmer gave a sloppy salute and slipped off, Flint’s eyes on his back the entire time. “Are you sure you can trust him?”

“Palmer?” Silver turned to look where Flint was gazing, but saw no sign of the rigger who’d all but sworn himself to her service. “At this point I think I might trust him a sight more than I trust you.”

The look Flint gave her then was almost hurt, but he tilted his head and nodded as if to say ‘fair’ before walking off himself.

Silver rolled her eyes before starting toward the market. As she ordered meat, fruit, vegetables, forewent the basic necessities to make biscuits, and ordered several barrels of rum, she gathered the recent gossip and what she was hearing, she didn’t like.

A newcomer to Nassau, a captain called Ned Low who’s two distinguishing features were the scar that ran from scalp to cheek, bisecting his right eye in the process, and his absolute viciousness. They’d come to town to sell the bloodied cargo from a ship stolen out from under one of Eleanor Guthrie’s tips and set about making an enemy of the women from the outset by arguing over the price of the ruined casks. Apparently Eleanor had kicked the captain out of her tavern after he’d threatened her over it. The very next day Low beheaded his quartermaster in Guthrie’s tavern, and when she tried to expel him from the island, her man O’Malley was gutted and his throat sliced.

If that wasn’t enough, he and his crew were abusing the girl’s at Noonan’s, angering the street. When Noonan had tried to deny them entrance, he’d mysteriously disappeared and then Captain Low beat the madam to death in front of her girls.

“Christ,” hissed Silver at that last tidbit from the orange seller and abruptly changed direction, sliding through the alleys across the main thoroughfares until she came out on the street behind Guthrie’s tavern. There, connected by an intricate maze of bridges to the main buildings and boarding houses along the beach was Noonan’s brothel.

Normally at this time of day there would be boys sweeping out the floors and girls cleaning themselves, getting a good meal in before catching a few hours sleep so they could be up and working all night. But the windows were shuttered and the main door locked. Silver turned and climbed the side stairs, skirting around the veranda until she came to Max’s rooms.

They were wrecked; blankets and sheets ripped and strewn on the floor, the armoire was overturned and the mirror cracked. Silver ran to Idelle’s room next and banged on the locked door.

A curtain moved and then the door was wrenched open and Idelle flung herself into Silver’s arms. “Oh thank god you’re back!”

Silver froze. In the half second she’d seen Idelle’s face, she’d noticed the black eye and swollen lip.

Idelle took a look over the veranda and then pulled Silver inside the room before locking the door behind her once more.

“What the hell, Idelle?” Silver spit out. “Where’s Noonan? Why didn’t Eleanor hire someone to protect you when he disappeared? What the hell happened to Max?”

So Idelle explained as best she had figured.

Max had concocted a plan to sell the information the girls collected when entertaining the men, and if that information sold hurt Eleanor in some way? All the better.

“None of us like the Guthrie woman,” Idelle shrugged when Silver just gave her a look. “And we’d all make a little coin on the side. What could it hurt?”

A great deal, it turned out. Eleanor had figured it out when Captain Low stole a prize out from under one of her own captains. When she confronted Noonan about it, he’d given up Max without a fight and had her beaten to appease Eleanor’s anger. After that, Max had disappeared.

“To where?”

“Don’t know and don’t care,” Idelle shrugged again. “She’s the reason we’re in this mess to begin with.”

“Idelle,” Silver stated calmly and then just stared at the woman, expectant.

Idelle squirmed for a minute before sighing, “She went to the witch.”

Silver lifted her head at that. Max was with Able? That could be interesting. “Go on.”

When Captain Low returned for more information he was turned away, but not before he threatened Noonan. That night Noonan disappeared.

“Some think Low killed him,” Idelle muttered sullenly.

“But you don’t.”

She shook her head. “Mapleton told me he’d gone after Max, to bring her back to make Low happy.”

“Christ,” Silver hissed.

When Noonan didn’t reappear, Mrs. Mapleton had done was she could to protect the girls, but Low had punched her in the stomach when she tried to throw him out.

“He tore something in her,” Idelle whispered, her horror at the memory painted a vivid enough picture for Silver. “When she fell he kicked her hard enough we _heard_ something break. She pissed herself as he walked out. Couldn’t move her legs and died before we could even send for the doctor.”

Silver went to embrace her but she shook her head and warned her off with one hand. “If I don’t get this out before I start crying I’ll never finish it proper.”

So Silver waited.

“I went to the Guthrie woman,” Idelle said, her face taking on a hard cast. “She told me it was too bad and that we should’ve picked better customers.”

Silver blinked at that. “She actually _said_ that? ‘Pick better customers’? Like you’re spoiled for choice?”

Idelle nodded and Silver felt an absolute wash of rage at the sheer ignorance this woman seemed to exhibit, time and time again.

“What was her excuse for not helping you?”

“She said she had troubles of her own and couldn’t afford to watch over backstabbing whores.”

Silver grit her teeth, telling herself that if the rumors she was hearing were even _half_ true, then Eleanor Guthrie had quite a bit of trouble on her hands. Silver promised herself she’d deal with it at some point in the future and then looked, really looked at Idelle and the poor condition she was in. “How are you and the girls handling it?”

“Me and some of the girls are pooling what we can, to pay for food and the like but,” she shrugged and Silver understood. People were selfish at the best of times, she didn’t need to imagine how they would be when desperate and abused.

“And the tavern? What happens to it now that Noonan’s gone?”

Idelle’s face shuttered. “The bursar came. He said if we can’t produce a Letter of Mark by the end of the week then he’ll have to repossess it and kick us out. The men on the street know, bill collectors have come and they’re taking advantage to get every bit out of us that they can without paying, making some of the girls promises I’ve told them not to believe-”

It was a problem, but one that was easily solved. “Can you get papers written in Noonan’s hand? Bills and such? Anything with his signature.”

Idelle’s eyes brightened. “Of course.” She moved to her own side desk and pulled out a sheaf of papers; slips, receipts and such, written in Noonan’s hand with his signature on a fair few of them.

Silver smirked at the sight and took them in hand. “Got blank parchment and some ink?”

* * *

Silver left the bursar’s office the proud new owner of a tavern brothel. Idelle had baulked when Silver started to name her Noonan’s silent partner. “I have no head for it,” she argued. “I like fucking. And I can help keep the girls in line. But I don’t want the headache.” She’d nearly refused again when Silver wanted to put Max down. “The girls won’t believe it, not with the way Noonan treated her,” she explained. “But they’d take her back as madam under you.”

Silver told Idelle to start getting the books in order, and to tell any bill collectors to see her. Idelle’s face then had been pleased as punch. Silver wondered how she was going to be able to handle it all. Convincing Max would likely be easy; she would have a secure position with an income and a partner. And if her vendetta against Eleanor Guthrie was an issue, well, Silver had no qualms utilizing the less damaging of those leads for her own gain, as long as they didn’t bring down the young woman’s wrath.

Moving quickly, she went back to the market and paid the sellers to deliver everything to the jetty and then waited at the edge of the beach for Flint to come down from the fort. When Palmer joined the supplies at the jetty, she nodded at him to wait and then headed up to the fort herself to find out what was taking so long. She was denied entrance and told to wait at the door. A few minutes later Mister Scott appeared.

“Flint’s not here,” he informed her.

Silver blinked at him. “Where the fuck did he go?”

Scott appraised her silently before stepping back and motioning her inside. “Best you see for yourself.”

He led her to Hornigold’s rooms, an opulent example of the fortunes amassed and the comfort collected by a man who sailed more than half his life on the sea, and a good chunk of that taking prizes from fat merchants and rich adventurers. Unlike Flint’s room where the richness was spare, Hornigold’s furniture was delicate looking and overwhelmingly gilded. Lush velvets overlapped bright silks and covered opal and pearl inlays. There were enough examples of the renaissance masters on the wall that this room alone could be construed as a museum. A Louis XIV chaise took pride of place before a brand new Queen Anne desk. The only place comfort ruled was atop the wide four-poster. Several pallets stuffed with goose down overlaid a thick woolen mattress. Pillows were piled high against the headboard and in the middle lay Hornigold himself, small and seemingly diminished.

He’d been beaten recently and quite badly. She almost didn’t recognize the man below his silver curls if not for the brightness of his pale grey eyes.

“You must have just missed him,” Hornigold whispered, the volume of his voice alone beckoning Silver closer. “He went to assure himself of the Guthrie girl’s wellbeing.”

That perked her interest. “Eleanor Guthrie was attacked?”

“This morning,” he nodded and then motioned to his own face. “I tried to intervene.”

Silver’s face darkened. “Captain Ned Low?”

“That monster was attempting to rape her in the middle of her bar,” Hornigold chuckled and it was a wet sound. “Most of his men were there watching, keeping the others from doing anything. I stepped in, made him stop long enough for her former slaves to muscle in and protect her. I thought that would be the end of it. Mister Scott told me later that a few of his men waylaid him. He caught me alone on the way back to the fort.”

 _“He_ did this?”

Hornigold nodded. “I may be old, but I am strong.”

“Then how-?”

“He is something I’ve never seen before.”

Silver felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. For what Hornigold was, even self-maimed as he professed to be, very little could get the better of him. And for as old as he looked, the silver-haired turnskin was easily in his late second or early third _century._ Not much could get the better of him. Only two or three things off the top of her head, and if _she_ could think of them, then Hornigold had heard of them. So what was Captain Ned Low?

“Hornigold-”

“Please, girl, call me by name, at least once before I die.”

Silver bit back a protest and swallowed hard before she approached the bed and sat beside him. She took his hand in hers and gently stroked the leathery, liver spotted flesh. “Unicorn. Old French, _unicorne._ Latin, _unicornis._ Literally, one horned: _unus,_ one, and _cornu,_ a horn. A fabulous animal resembling a horse with one horn. Please my dear, you will lay your head in my virgin lap and I will brush out your mane until the hunters come to take your horn from you.”

And Captain Benjamin Hornigold sighed out a laugh, for though he could turn into a unicorn, he was nothing like the legends foretold, and they both knew it. The only things the stories got right were that lusty unicorns were attracted to virgin maids and they had a single horn. They weren’t glistening white steeds. They didn’t have a horn of gold. Said horn didn’t grow on their brow. And they weren’t attracted to virgin maids because of their purity and innocence, but because only with a maid untouched by any other and within a womb unsown could they _breed,_ for all unicorns were monstrous males with a single driving need; _reproduce._ The fact that Hornigold had _cut off his horn_ was nearly unfathomable to her – akin to a man castrating himself, for that is exactly what he’d done. Hunters hunted them for the simple superstition that the powdered horn of a unicorn guaranteed male heirs to any man who rubbed it upon his member before penetrating a woman. The horror of it was that _it worked._

In the right hands, powdered unicorn horn could do a great many wondrous and terrible things, but for that _one single thing_ had Hornigold’s brothers been hunted into near extinction. He had every right to hate hunters and she didn’t blame him for hating her, so she was surprised when he motioned to the drawer of his bedside table. “There’s a small leather bag. Fetch it for me, would you?”

The soft leather pouch was the size of her fist, and inside was what felt very much like wet sand.

“No,” She looked at him in horror. “You’ll die.”

“I’m already dying. I doubt I’ll last the night.” He gave her a self-depreciating smile. “I know you’ll put it to good use.”

“You don’t know that,” she whispered.

His smile turned sad, “It doesn’t concern you?”

Silver blinked at him. “Pardon?”

“When you set sail my friend had his ear and you were ballast. He calls my friend a mutineer and puts him in the sea. Now he’s given you his ear,” He made a motion toward the door as if talking about someone just beyond it. “How can you stand so close to him, knowing what he’s capable of? Knowing sooner or later you’ll be next?”

Silver stared at him for a long minute, organizing her thoughts before answering, “Five million pieces of eight. Why? How do you do it?”

He waved his fingers at the bag in her hand. “I made sure there was nothing to leverage.”

* * *

Flint found her just before she turned onto the main road in front of Guthrie’s public house and dragged her into a deserted alley between buildings. “Where the hell have you been?”

She gave him a derogatory look. “Looking for you. It’s not exactly a feast, but the food I procured should be waiting on the jetty with Palmer and his weapons.”

“Get rid of it,” Flint snarled. “Dump it, I don’t care.”

“What about the crew?”

“Tell them the truth; it was stolen by Ned Low and the animals he commands. They run amuck on the island and no one’s been spared, didn’t you notice?”

Silver wanted to be surprised, but she wasn’t. “Yes, in fact, since I’ve just come from the fort.”

Flint winced and then finally looked her in the eye. “How is he, really?”

“Dying,” she stated baldly, guessing correctly that Hornigold had hid that fact from Flint when confronted by the werewolf telling him that he’d murdered his friend. She was neither pleased nor sorry when the captain flinched.

“How long,” it wasn’t really a question.

“Tonight. Tomorrow. It doesn’t really matter does it?”

Flint ran a hand through his hair and nearly stomped his foot in frustration. “I don’t have time to deal with this. Every day wasted is another day closer to losing that gold.”

Silver crossed her arms, “Then I suggest we deal with it quickly.”

He looked at her and Silver just stood there staring back. After a while he grit his teeth and swung away from her, his hands fisting at his sides. “I want the men boiling over by the time I return.”

“Where are you going?” Silver asked only to pull up at his dark look. It was one she hadn’t seen since the night she’d found him drunk and stumbling out of Guthrie’s. “I see.”

His face darkened. “Do you have another solution?”

She tipped her head and thought back to everything that had happened so far that day; it was a lot. But something about this morning’s conversation with Vane twigged in her memory. “Why was Vane going off to find men not a good idea?”

He swiped at the air as though to wipe away the comment. “Is this really the time?”

“You want to lie to the men, _again,_ to incite them to what? Attack Low and his crew for killing Hornigold and endangering your plans for Nassau? Yes, I think this is the perfect time to explain, especially since it’s not _you_ that will be lying to the men. So tell me why I must do this thing for you. Explain to me why it’s necessary, when the truth will most likely be enough.”

Flint growled and nearly started toward her, but pulled himself up at the last moment and looked away. “Vane’s right; we need men.”

“I don’t dispute that.”

He lifted a lip at her sarcasm. “He’s going to _Ilsa de Pinos_ to a man named Albinus who sells lumber to anyone with the coin to buy.” When she just stared at him, he shook his head. “Albinus’ real name is Laurens de Graaf.”

Silver’s eyes did widen at that. She’d heard of the Dutch pirate, famous for his brutality throughout the Gulf. She’d also heard that he’d died in the French colonies of North America in the early 1700’s. “Why do you have rules because of him?”

“Do you know where the name ‘de Graaf’ comes from?”

Silver tilted her head and pulled up every relevant memory relating to the word and her learning. “Graaf, the Dutch word for _Count,_ relating to the English _Earl,_ stemming from the Norse word _jarl,_ which means chieftain.” She tried to ignore the way he stared at her with eyes glittering, as if she fascinated him. “The title of _jarl_ often went to the best fighters. During the height of the Vikings, that meant being _berserker,_ a true son of Odin, a man capable of channeling-” Silver stopped, her mouth open as what she was saying finally struck her. There were hunter legends that the True Sons of Odin were the original turnskins, that they could call upon their animal natures without the repercussions that those cursed with the nature they were forced to endure, that they reveled in the violence and blood. She’d never met one, and none of her family had boasted of killing one, but they were in the histories because some believed they were the source of the curse. “Are you trying to tell me that the pirate de Graaf is _berserker?”_

Flint tilted his head, a small smile playing about his mouth. “Does your brain always do that?”

She frowned at him. “I remember everything I’ve ever read. Answer the question.”

“Yes,” his smiled slipped. “De Graaf is a wolf berserker. He particularly enjoyed forcing young boys he’d enslaved to kill each other for his own entertainment during full moons. Then he’d bite the survivors as reward.”

She stared at him for a long moment before she got it. “Vane.”

“Yes,” he said simply, refusing to elaborate on the atrocities Charles Vane had endured as a child and had spoken of enough to his brother wolves to convince them that hunting during the full moon was not worth it.

“Christ,” Silver hissed.

“Yes,” he agreed.

“All right,” Silver ran a hand through her own hair as she thought things through. “All right. What about Vane?”

This time it was Flint’s turn to blink at her. “What about him?”

“What happens when Vane hears what Low did to Hornigold? What he nearly did to Eleanor Guthrie?”

Flint frowned. “You think Charles Vane will care what another pirate has done when it doesn’t affect him?”

Silver wanted to thump him in the head. “You don’t?”

“Why would he?”

Were all men this socially inept? “Because Vane views Eleanor much the same way Rackham views Bonny?”

Flint was not a stupid man, and just because he hadn’t put it together before, didn’t mean he couldn’t now. His eyes widened and he turned toward the beach as if ready to bolt to the jetty and the _Revenge_ to stop the man. But before they could even leave the alley, a scream pierced the late afternoon. Soon followed by a bevy of them. A group was quickly gathering to view something planted in the packed sand in front of Guthrie’s.

Silver had a sinking feeling it was a bit too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couple of things: Please feel free to look up Laurens de Graaf. I didn't put a bio of him in here because it would be too long and a little off topic (even though I really, _really_ wanted to), but he was a real pirate and based off the few sentences he and Vane shared in _Black Sails_ is the most likely culprit behind the character of Albinus. Also, every chapter I post in this series is raw and unedited, so if you do find errors PLEASE LET ME KNOW. I read these words so often I'm seeing what I think is there as opposed to what's actually written, so any help is welcome. Lastly, there's a _Firefly_ quote in there. Let me know if you spot it. ;P
> 
> Love you [Olorisstra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olorisstra/pseuds/Olorisstra), as always your comments feed my soul.
> 
> P.S. I'm vaguely amused that the Comments ticker will be higher than the Kudos at this point.


	4. XII.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More balls up in the air.  
> ...  
> Yes, I read your comments. XD  
> ...  
> Also, tags have been edited, just fyi. And cookie to the person who spots a familiar line from [Footloose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Footloose/pseuds/Footloose) and [mushroomtale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mushroomtale/pseuds/mushroomtale)'s _[Shadowlord and Pirate King](https://archiveofourown.org/works/957967)_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was clawed and scraped from my psyche inch by torturous inch.

**_1715 – Nassau, New Providence Island_ **

Flint and Silver stood in the shadow of the porch that wrapped around Guthrie’s and watched as the people gaped at the body put on display.

A body that had been skinned from the neck down, allowing the shine of muscle and bone to peak through the gristle and dripping blood, then beheaded and mounted on a pike and splayed with the chest cavity broken open to show where the heart had been ripped out. Stuck atop of the pike was the swollen-tongued, cloudy-eyed head of Captain Ned Low. Tied around the pike protruding through the trunk of the body and discreetly laid over the mutilated genitals was a wooden placard carved with the words:

**I ANGERED ELEANOR GUTHRIE**

“Well,” Silver started slowly, still getting over her relative shock of seeing that kind of bloody mutilation put on display and not hidden in the shadows. “That’s one way to dramatically announce your courtship.”

Flint glanced at her, his expression questioning her soundness of mind.

Silver flung her hand at the display, “Tell me you don’t find that a little romantic!”

“Romantic?” Flint scoffed. “You think a mutilated body is an acceptable romantic gesture?”

“When it’s of a man who’s repeatedly threatened to rape me in front of witnesses and nearly did just this morning?” Silver crossed her arms. “Yes, I think it’s perfectly acceptable to proclaim your love and devotion by cutting off that man’s cock and no doubt shoving it down his throat before ripping out his heart and removing his head. And judging by her expression, I think Miss Guthrie does as well.”

Eleanor stormed passed the body toward them as though she’d heard Silver call her name with a bright, determined look on her face. “Where is he?”

Silver nearly rolled her eyes at the girl. She turned to Flint only to find him looking at her, too, only his look wasn’t so much questioning as it was calculating. Like he was trying to figure out what kind of gesture she would find romantic. She did roll her eyes then and turned back to the girl. “I am not his keeper. How am I supposed to know where he went? Probably to lick his wounds and wash off the blood, hopefully not in that order.”

A corner of Flint’s mouth lifted before he looked back at the body. After a moment, he began to frown.

“Don’t tell me you disapprove?” Silver sighed at his expression, “Weren’t we just discussing solution to this very problem not half an hour past? And here Vane has hand delivered it at your feet. Well, _her_ feet.”

Flint blinked at her and then shook his head. “Not that. How did he know?”

“How did who know what?”

“Vane was supposed to be on the ship or on his way to _Ilsa de Pinos_ and no one else was to leave the ship. So how did he hear about Low?”

Silver’s expression cleared as she turned toward the beach to look down the main street at the empty jetty. “Palmer.”

“What?” Flint barked, starting down the road. “I thought you said you could trust him!”

“To keep his mouth shut while on the beach!” Silver argued, keeping up with him by nearly jogging. “Not to keep his mouth shut when generously returning to the ship with all the supplies we’d laid in for the crew without you or I telling him to do so.”

 _“Fuck,”_ Flint barked and stopped so swiftly Silver nearly ran into the back of him.

It took her a moment to spot why he had stopped, but when she did, her mouth dropped open. “Fuck.”

Behind them, Eleanor, who had apparently followed them in the hopes of finding Vane, gasped. “What the fuck?”

The Spanish Man of War _Bloody Revenge_ was anchored in the mouth of the bay, turned in such a way that her broadside could very easily come to bear on any of the ships anchored within should they come about or try to run. And each and every one of her cannon ports were open, the dark hungry mouths of the Lola’s sticking out.

* * *

Arranging for a longboat to row Flint and Silver out to the ship was surprisingly easy; all the captains present on the beach were ready and willing to offer any kind of aid if it would mitigate the threat inherent in the presence of the _Revenge._ Convincing Eleanor _not_ to accompany them, was not.

“Eleanor, you’re not coming,” Flint stated without finesse.

Silver nearly winced. Even she knew not to directly challenge the girl who had a bad habit of flying the fingers in the face of father figures trying to control her.

“He did this for me, Flint.” Eleanor argued. “I’m going.”

“You’re not,” Flint gritted out.

Silver sighed gustily, annoyed at Flint’s lack of ability or willingness to explain.

“You have something to say?” Eleanor turned at the sound, ready and willing to fight all comers it seemed.

“Plenty,” Silver muttered. “But none of it I think you’ll hear.”

Eleanor glared at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, you’re right; he did this for you,” she started, ignoring the hole Flint began to glare into the side of her face. “And that’s exactly why you should wait for him to come to you.”

“What?” Both Flint and Eleanor asked at the same time, making Silver want to laugh at the disgruntled looks they gave each other.

“He’s just bloodied a man for her,” Silver explained, catching Flint’s eye and _willing_ him to understand where she was going with this. “He’s going to be angry and dangerous and on edge, not to mention likely covered head to toe in blood.” She looked Eleanor square in the face so that there would be no misunderstanding. “If you go to him right this moment, he’s going to claim you, he won’t be able to help himself. And he’ll do it while bloodied and in front of the crew – _because you went to him_. Do you understand?”

By the paling of her face and the pinking of her cheeks, the girl was beginning to. Even Flint’s pale skin turned a bit ruddy as he cleared his throat and looked away. Even so, Eleanor looked like she was about to argue, so Silver hammered it home.

“If you go to him right now, he’s going to fuck you first chance he gets, girl. He’ll take you to the ground as soon as he sees you because you going to him signals to his wolf that you’ve accepted this gesture. So if that’s not something that appeals to you, then let us at least get him cleaned up before we send him your way,” then she pointed a finger at her. “And be _very_ sure you want us to send him to you, because after this there will be no turning back.”

“That’s enough,” Flint said, obviously uncomfortable.

“Is it?” Silver asked, her gaze flicking back and forth between them. “Have you explained to her just what this means? Hell, do any of you know yourselves? Or have you just been skipping along, holding to your instincts by the skin of your teeth, abiding by your ‘rules’ and hoping for the best?”

“What do you mean, ‘there’s no going back’?”

Silver looked at Flint incredulously as he swallowed again and glanced away. Sighing, Silver turned back to the young woman. “When a turnskin like Vane finds a willing partner both sides of him can accept, they will mate, for life. There’s a few things to indicate this is possible: compatible sexuality;” she lifted a finger when Eleanor blushed. “A willingness to submit to their authority;” Another finger went up along with Flint’s brow at the reminder of Vane following Eleanor against Blackbeard. “The instinctual need to protect and defend against all and sundry;” Silver didn’t need to point to the body still on display. “And an indication from both for a willingness to mate. To his wolf, you submitting to him physically after this kind of overt gesture will indicate your acceptance. To his wolf, you’ll essentially be married and he will never be able to go to another. Not even after your death.”

After a tense minute Eleanor narrowed her eyes at Silver. “How do you know all this?”

Silver crossed her arms and deliberately didn’t meet Flint’s eyes. “I’ve learned the signs because it’s very easy to slaughter a grieving turnskin after you’ve killed their human mate. Most of the time, they even _want_ to die.”

The silence then was profound and Silver shifted on her feet, uncomfortable to the core of her being for the first time since turning her back on her family in France. She wasn’t about to explain herself; she didn’t owe them that. But neither did she really want them to mistrust her because of this. So she told herself that if Flint asked, she’d answer. But to her relief – and sorrow – he wasn’t the one who broke the silence.

“What… if acceptance is exactly what I want to say to him?”

Silver turned incredulous eyes to the young woman. “You want him to fuck you in front of Flint’s and his own crew? Isn’t that exactly why he murdered, mutilated and _displayed_ one body for you already?”

Eleanor winced and turned her head. “But won’t making him come to me tell him I’m unwilling?”

Silver tilted her head. “Are you? Willing?”

Eleanor bit her lip and then slowly nodded.

Silver heaved a sigh. “Sure, why not? Let’s have this here in public. Right here on the beach. Let everyone know werewolves exist by watching him lose his head and mate her and probably knot – do you know if Vane has a knot when he changes? – and lock them together right here in the sand like dogs. Do you know wolves can be tied together for up to an hour? I bet we could make a killing selling tickets like it’s a show.”

“There’s no need to be crude,” Eleanor sniffed.

Silver laughed near hysterically before turning to Flint, “You explain to her.”

Flint had gone ridged, his heels together and his hands fisted at the small of his back as if standing at Attention. His cheeks were bright ruddy flags and his throat and what she could see of his chest were deeply flushed. She had a fleeting thought to wonder how far down the flush went, but then he cleared his throat and swallowed a couple of times before answering, “No, I-uh… think you’re doing fine. Explaining things, I mean.”

Silver smirked at him then turned back to Eleanor. “You want my honest advice? Go back to your rooms – I assume he knows how to get there?” at her nod, she continued. “Close your windows, light some candles, lube yourself up and lay naked on your bed when he comes to you. He’ll get the message. Flint,” she turned to her Captain and with great malice aforethought said, “Get in the fucking boat. _You_ get to explain things to Vane.”

* * *

When they got to the _Revenge,_ Vane wasn’t on the ship. Neither were his men, Rackham or Bonny.

“They left not long after Palmer came back and started regaling the crew with the gossip on the beach,” Billy explained as Silver climbed aboard followed by Flint.

“Where the fuck is he then?” Flint growled, shaking his head as he looked around. “And why the fuck are we anchored like a blockade in the harbor?”

Billy grimaced then, “Dufresne. He thought it necessary after Vane and his crew took a longboat against orders. He wanted to make sure Vane wasn’t double-crossing us.”

“What was he intending to do? Flint asked incredulously. “Shoot every ship that tried to leave before us? Eleanor has a business to run; ships are in and out of here numerous times on a daily basis.”

“I tried to tell him to wait,” Billy crossed his arms. “That Vane wouldn’t go against you now, not after promising the _Revenge_ to him. He’s decided to use that as an excuse to remove you as Captain.”

Silver blinked at him. “What, again?”

“That about sums up how the men felt, too.” Billy smirked. “It’s why he was voted down.”

“Can I kill him this time?”

“No,” Flint blinked at her and Silver got the distinct impression that he wasn’t surprised because she wanted to kill the quartermaster, but more surprised that she’d _asked_ him. “But I might.”

“Ruin all my fun,” she mock pouted, causing Flint to snort and Billy to throw his head back and laugh.

And that was the scene Dufresne walked up to. “So pleased that the situation in which we find ourselves is amusing to you.”

“Nothing about this situation you’ve created is amusing, _Mister_ Dufresne,” Flint sneered and prowled toward the man, not stopping until Dufresne stumbled back a step before fisting his hands and standing his ground. Flint’s face looked amused and oddly pleased for having backed the man down physically. “This is the only warning I’ll give you, Mister Dufresne, so heed it well. Should you ever overstep the bounds of your authority again I will show you how the Brethren Court treat mutineers. Do you understand me, _Mister_ Dufresne?”

Even Silver caught the way he was making a mockery of his title. Dufresne went from a fearful blanch to a self-righteous flush, but he wisely remained silent and nodded.

“Good,”’ Flint practically purred, rubbing whatever that was in. “Now where the fuck is Vane?

Turns out they didn’t need to look for the man as a few minutes later a whistle went up as a longboat was spotted heading toward them in the fading light of early evening. Rackham at the bow.

Flint stormed to the rails as soon as he heard the news, and without waiting for the man to climb the sides, shouted down at him, “What the hell did you do?”

“Ah. Yes, well,” Rackham swallowed in the face of Flint obvious anger. “It’s not so much what I did, as what I didn’t do.”

“That’s fucking obvious, Jack.” Flint barked. “Where the hell is he?”

“That’s why I came to retrieve you,” Rackham gestured to the boat he stood in. “Would you, Mister Bones, and Silver be so kind as to join us upon the late Captain Low’s ship, the _Fancy?”_

Flint stared before barking a laugh. “He had the audacity to call his ship the _Fancy?”_

The look on Rackham’s face said enough. Billy slid over the rail at a gesture from Flint just as Dufresne approached.

“I think I should go along as well.”

Flint stared hard at him, “And yet you were not invited.”

“As captain of this crew you should insist your quartermaster be present,” Dufresne argued, his eyes following Silver as she threw a leg over the rail in preparation to slid easily down the side to the waiting longboat below.

“You seem to be under some misconception, _Mister_ Dufresne,” Flint growled, taking a gliding, threatening step closer to the bespectacled man, aware of the eyes and ears of the crew focused on their conversation. “So let me make this perfectly clear. When it comes to the wellbeing of the crew, I respect Silver’s opinion a hell of a lot more than yours.”

Dufresne jerked his glare from Silver’s still form to meet Flint’s bright gaze. He opened his mouth to argue but Flint cut him off.

“You have book learning, and a wealth of knowledge from watching Gates and I for the last few years. But,” Flint eyed the man like cat eyed a pinned insect beneath its paw. “You hesitate when you should act and you act when you should wait.” He gestured to the _Revenge’s_ position at the mouth of the bay. “This was an unnecessary threat that has not only put you in opposition of every Captain in Nassau, but also put this ship and every man upon it within firing range of the fort had I not already spoken to Captain Hornigold and assured him of our complete lack of aggression to Nassau. So I am going to speak with Captain Vane and assure him of our continued partnership, seeing as he has just acquired a ship to use in consort when we go to retrieve the gold. Then I will likely be spending the remainder of the evening explaining to Miss Guthrie and every Captain in Nassau that my quartermaster is not actually a would-be tyrant, but a misguided fool with good intentions. If you wish to make yourself useful, _Mister_ Dufresne, you’ll start on that last before I get back, but I shall be very surprised if you are indeed still Quartermaster by the time I return.”

With that he gestured to the men standing up behind the man, their angry faces at the realization and ramifications of just what Dufresne had done. Then he turned, gave a toothy grin at Silver and gestured her down in to the waiting longboat.

Billy helped her down the last few rungs as her legs had gone a bit weak. He gave her a look as he asked, “What’s wrong with you?”

“If we didn’t have an audience at this very moment, I’d be ripping Flint’s clothes off and having my way with him for how he just put down Dufresne,” she said quietly so that only the wolves could hear.

Flint missed the last rung entirely and nearly fell into the longboat before his natural grace reasserted itself. Billy just snorted as Rackham threw back his head and laughed uproariously before gesturing the oarsmen to be on their way. As Flint found his seat directly in front of her, Silver just stared calmly at him while he eyed her curiously, occasionally glancing at Billy as if to gauge his reaction. She just rolled her eyes and Billy huffed a laugh before looking away.

“Really?” Flint asked when she stared calmly back at him.

Silver shrugged, “The moment’s passed now.”

“Well, my time of not taking you seriously is coming to a middle,” he replied.

She gave him a toothy grin in return but didn’t say anything as they approached the 80-ton schooner. Rackham quietly explained that the ship was equipped with only ten guns and crewed by forty men, most of which had been pressed into service and were glad to change allegiances now that Captain Low was dead.

“How many?” Flint asked.

“Twenty-eight,” Rackham replied, a grin on his face. “Enough for what you have in mind, surely Captain.”

“And the others?”

“No longer a problem,” Rackham flashed his teeth.

Flint turned to the quartermaster with a piercing look, stilling the usually mercurial man. “Why didn’t Vane come himself?”

“Ah,” Rackham sighed and ran a hand through his hair, visibly affected. “We found something in the hold of the ship. A prize Captain Low had been keeping back.”

The longboat bumped into the side of the schooner and Bonny’s face appeared at the rail. “About fucking time!”

Rackham started to climb but Flint caught his arm. “Is the prize really worth enough to keep him onboard?”

“It’s not that,” Rackham swallowed and leaned in close, “It’s that the prize _woke up.”_

They climbed aboard quickly after that. Silver could see that there were a few bodies being stacked against the rails, to be tossed overboard just as soon as the ship hit open sea – apparently it was an unspoken rule not to dump bodies in the bay, as they had an unpleasant habit of surfacing when bloated – while the rest of the crew that had surrendered were corralled together on the gun deck under watch by most, if not all of Vane’s remaining men. Bonny led them to the stair and then stood guard as Rackham led Flint, Billy and Silver down into the lower hold.

Both Flint and Billy went ridged long before they entered the hold, and Silver didn’t know what they’d sensed until Rackham opened the door.

The terrified whines and sniffles of what sounded like a dog reached her ears long before the smells of human filth touched her nose. She didn’t discern the low, soothing tones of Vane until she turned and saw him crouched in front of something cowering in the corner.

It was a girl, in a stained dress with oily hair in ragged, lanky knots about her face. Bruises marred her delicate skin and blood seeped from several raw wounds caused by rope on her wrists and ankles. Silver noticed the whites of her terrified eyes before she saw how the irises glowed an unearthly gold.

She could see right away that Vane was trying to sooth the girl, but he couldn’t see that his appearance; masculine and powerful, still smeared in blood, was having the exact opposite effect.

Silver stepped forward, evading Flint’s grasping hand and sliding around Vane until she turned, her back to the girl and crouched in front of Vane with her arms out to her sides. Her stance was protective of the girl and her instant silence was as much a sign of her surprise as Vane’s abrupt motion to stand.

“What the fuck.” Despite his obvious surprise and anger, Vane kept his voice low and soothing.

Silver smiled at him. “Take a few steps back and I’ll show you.”

He did, stepping back until he joined Flint, Rackham and Billy at the entrance. As soon as he stopped moving, Silver slowly stood, stepping back in small steps until the girl behind her growled. As soon as she made a sound, Silver crouched again, her back to the girl and her arms at her sides. When the girl quieted, she moved again. She repeated the back-up and crouch twice more before she felt the brush of the girl’s skirt against her calf. As she lowered herself again, she watched in approval as Billy crouched down with her, his head turned toward them but his eyes carefully averted to their feet and not their faces. Only when she felt a small hand tentatively grasp the back of her belt did she meet Flint’s intent gaze.

“A blanket or coat?” She asked, watched as his eyes gentled in understanding. He nodded and turned slowly so as not to startled the girl. He was back in minutes with a cot blanket pulled from on of the hammocks. Silver smiled in approval. “Wrap it tight and underhand lob it to me. I don’t want it unfurling at her.”

He tilted his head but did as she asked, rolling it into a tight ball and tucking the ends under before crouching and slowly, with carefully obvious movements, rolled the blanket to Silver. She caught it and untucked the corners, carefully unfolding it with the same calm movements before holding a corner of the blanket behind her. She smiled, pleased when the corner was taken and all but one corner that Silver held on to, pulled back and wrapped around the girl’s trembling body.

After making sure Silver wasn’t in any danger, Flint turned to Vane and said in a quiet tone, “What. The. Fuck.”

Vane nearly choked trying to hold back his laughter at that before he got serious again and eyed the streaks of blood still clinging to his forearms. “Your man Palmer came back to the boat talking about Captain Ned Low and all he’d accomplished in the last few days. I felt the need to introduce myself.”

Flint grimaced, “You didn’t think it prudent to wait?”

“Would you?” Vane bared his teeth when Flint met his eyes. The stare was intense for a single breath before Flint glanced down, ceding the point.

Silver eyed Vane carefully, looking for injuries he may be concealing. “How did you do it?”

The men looked at her with varying levels of skepticism.

“I _know_ the particulars,” Silver rolled her eyes. “That was obvious to anyone with eyes.”

“Then what-?” Vane started.

“He killed Hornigold,” she stated baldly.

Vane’s face took on a dark cast. “What.”

“You know Hornigold was… other,” Silver started. “He was very powerful, very old and very strong. He could have killed any of you on a bad day without tipping his pipe. And the former Captain Low beat him to the point where he won’t last the night. So, how did you kill him?”

Before Vane could answer, the girl behind her stirred, lifting her head and eyeing Vane. “He’s dead?”

Vane met her gaze, and to his credit didn’t put any weight into his stare and let the girl look her fill before he answered, “I broke his legs so he couldn’t run, broke his arms when he tried to fight, cut off his cock and made him eat it when he screamed, skinned him while he choked on it, then ripped out his heart and cut off his head.”

Silver waited for the gently raised girl to cower in fear, gasp, faint, any number of things high-born sheltered daughters were wont to do when faced with the bloody brutality of a man unconstrained by society’s morals. It was telling of the horrors she’s suffered at Ned Low’s hands that she simply relaxed and said, “Good,” before falling forward into sleep. Silver caught her gently and then motioned to Billy, who came forward and slowly lifted her into his arms as though she were precious cargo.

Vane straightened from his slouch. “Put her in the Captain’s cabin for now. We can move her when she wakes.”

Flint motioned Billy forward and followed after him as he walked with careful steps up the gangway. “Do we know who she is?”

“Lord Ashe’s daughter,” Vane said over his shoulder as he opened the door to the Captain’s cabin and let Billy in, followed by Bonny and Rackham.

Silver had been behind Flint, and nearly walked into him when he heard the name. The other’s had already gone into the cabin so none of them were aware of how pale Flint turned just then. Because he looked to need it, Silver gave him a moment before gently taking his elbow in her hand and tugging him forward. His gaze darted to hers and she could see the shock in his face.

“You know him, then?” she asked quietly, slowly before they got to the door.

“I knew him. Many years ago,” Flint nodded to the room. “I met his daughter Abigail when she was about five.”

Even Silver had heard of the Governor of the Carolina Colony, a man who had vowed to rid the world of the pirate scourge. Why or how Flint came to know the man well enough to have met his adolescent daughter, Silver wasn’t sure she could fathom, but it lent credence to the suspicion in her head that he’d once been Royal Navy.

Silver tilted her head. “Will she remember you?”

He gave a jerk before frowning. “I surely hope not,” he muttered as he stepped forward into the cabin.

Before she could follow him, the booming report of a cannon broke the deepening twilight. Followed by another. And another. By the time the last cannon fired, Flint, Vane and the entire crew were standing on the deck, a deepening sense of loss pervading all the men present.

Sixteen cannon had fired into the water beyond the _Revenge,_ signaling to all and sundry that Captain Hornigold, Steward of the Fort of Nassau, was dead.

* * *

Billy had been sent back to the _Revenge_ to summon Dufresne to the meeting, while Bonny had stayed on the _Fancy_ to guard Miss Ashe, as Rackham’s and Vane’s presence would both soon be required. Flint had tried to send Silver back to the ship, but she’d stubbornly followed him when she understood what was about to happen while Vane and Rackham both looked on amused.

Full night had fallen, though it had only been two hours since the smoke from the cannon fire had cleared. Two hours and every Captain in the Bay, as well as every Lord Merchant in Nassau had rallied within Guthrie’s Keep for a full meeting of the Council. A full fifteen crews were represented from the Brethren, not including the four ships that made up Guthrie’s new merchant Consortium, nineteen merchants, Mister Holland, the bursar and Mistress Eleanor Guthrie.

Only one building was large enough to house all of them without crowding, the Lord Mayor’s residence at the top of Main Street, which sat mostly empty but for a large oval table in the center hall surrounded by a menagerie of chairs. Word had quickly spread and a great many people milled about the Hall, waiting for the meeting to start.

How it would start and who would start it was a mystery to Silver, but she stood quietly along the back wall and watched as the men and few women arranged themselves around the table. Flint essentially took control over the Captains at one end of the table, taking a seat just off center of head with Vane at his right and another Captain she recognized from the _Colonial Dawn_ at his left. The Quartermaster standing behind him was a regular of Idelle’s, a Mister Featherstone. Rackham took a position halfway behind Vane and Flint, ostensibly excluding Dufresne from their little group, though he stood close enough so as not to appear separate.

Somewhere, a cask of wine had been broken into and many of the men present were guzzling heartily from tin mugs passed around by a few of the girls from the brothel and black servers from the tavern. Charlotte made sure to meet Silver’s eye and smile. Silver knew then that word of her other business had spread quickly through the girls, though the lack of looks from everyone but the bursar said it hadn’t spread to all present.

Suddenly, Idelle was at her shoulder, leaning in to whisper, “Max is outside.”

Silver sucked in a breath, glanced at Flint to make sure he was occupied and, as unobtrusively as possible, followed Idelle out through the kitchen onto a shadowed back porch. Before she blink, Max was in her arms.

“ _Vous stupide, stupide fille! Comment diable suis-je censé vous rembourser si vous continuez à vous mettre en danger?_ ”

Silver laughed, “ _Cela aiderait beaucoup si vous arrêtiez de faire chier vos patrons. D'autant plus que j'espère être votre prochain_.”

Max stared in surprise. “ _Tu ne veux pas dire ça_.”

“God help me, I do,” Silver snorted. “There’s no way I can run a brothel and keep herd on Flint until we come back with the _Urca_ gold.” When Max continued to just stare at her, Silver shook her a little. “Want to be madam of your own brothel?”

Max tipped her head sideways, her mouth working as she thought everything over even though both she and Silver knew this was something Max would grab hold and clutch tight with both hands. As she waited, Silver got her first real look at her. Dressed in a modest blue gown, she looked healthy. Her hair was neatly tied back and oiled to a glossy finish. The few pieces of jewelry she wore were eye-catching but tasteful. Even the green brocade shawl she had over her shoulders was gently elegant instead of garishly attractive. The only mar was a greenish bruise along her cheek and the fading red line of a split lip from Noonan’s beating. Which reminded her.

“What did you do to Noonan?”

Max’s attention snapped back to her at the question. “What do you mean?” It was poorly done, even for a woman who knew how to act with every breath in her body and at Silver’s look, even Max winced in silent apology for the lie.

Silver stepped back and watched as the smaller woman pulled a shawl closer about her. “You will tell me before we leave tomorrow.”

“ _Es tu sur de vouloir savoir?_ ” Max looked away into the dark as she asked.

Something about her was different, fundamentally. And it wasn’t something Silver could see right away, but it was something felt, something she knew intrinsically had to do with Noonan and his disappearance. “No,” Silver murmured, her gentle tone pulling Max’s attention more surely than a shout. “I don’t think I want to know, but I think I’m going to have to.”

“Is that your condition?”

“Fuck Max,” Silver nearly spit. “I’m worried about my friend. Isn’t that enough?”

They stared at each other for a long minute before Max lowered her chin. “As you say,” she lifted a hand toward the Hall. “Shall we?”

Silver grinned and offered her elbow. “Ready to make a few waves?”

As they walked in, Silver took note of the slight limp in Max’s stride and gritted her teeth. “Did you make him hurt?”

Max didn’t look at her. “Very much.”

“Good.”

“Which reminds me,” Max murmured, pulling Silver to a stop just outside the Hall entrance where they could see and hear the people inside, but their quiet exchange would be completely unobserved. “I owe Able a great deal.”

Silver blinked at the non sequitur before he caught the slightly guilty look on Max’s face. She sighed, “You used my name, didn’t you?”

“I mentioned you when he asked why I came…”

When she trailed off, Silver understood. Beaten and run off, she hadn’t had access to anything worth trade except herself and what few personal items she’d been able to smuggle out, and Silver doubted Able was the type to take advantage with his noble leanings. “How much?”

Max looked away. “More than I can repay immediately.”

Silver parsed that answer with what she knew of Able and almost laughed. “You owe him time, don’t you?” at Max’s sharp look, she knew she’d guessed right. “How long?”

“A year and a day,” Max answered quietly.

Silver sucked in a breath through her teeth as all the implications of _that_ ran through her mind. “Fuck,” she hissed. “He’s taking you on as an apprentice Emissary.”

“That is what he said,” Max started, her brows furrowed in confusion. “Although I do not know what it means.”

Silver shook her head. “Later. I’ll explain later. Right now I need you as my business partner in there. Can you do that?”

Max nodded and straightened, lifting her chin and slitting her eyes like a cat.

“Good,” Silver straightened as well, and walked in with Max on her arm.

Most of the people present were too busy shouting at each other to notice Silver and Max’s entrance, but those that did lent a notable weight to their gaze. All but one Silver could ignore. Flint lifted a brow at her in question. She tilted her chin back to him in a slight nod. They’d talk later and she’d explain.

 _“Mon dieu,”_ Max whispered. “I had no idea you would garner the feared Captain’s Flint’s regard this well.”

Silver stiffened as she heard the slight avarice in her tone. “He’s not for you,” she murmured back, keeping her face relaxed.

“Just you?” she asked casually in a tone that meant anything but.

“No,” Silver replied, pulling them both to a stop against the wall in the middle of the room, a place she’d previously occupied before going out ot find Max that, she was pleased to note, had remained unoccupied in her absence. “I don’t think a man like him could be controlled by either of us, and I fear the mauling were I to try.”

“Guided, perhaps?”

“Counseled, at best,” Silver lifted her gaze and met Flint’s, knowing as she did that despite the noise in the Hall, he was probably hearing every word. “And even then only if he’s in the frame of mind to listen.”

The corner of Flint’s mouth lifted in silent acknowledgement before something Vane said garnered his attention.

“But you are good at getting him in the proper frame of mind?” Max whispered, having noted the byplay and accurately understanding what it meant.

Silver didn’t answer aloud, just put a hand over the one Max still rested in her elbow.

It was at that moment that Eleanor Guthrie commanded the attention of everyone in the room by banging an actual cannonball on the table. The people settled rather quickly; Merchant Lords on one side with Mister Holland, the bursar sitting at the head, Captains on the other with Flint their nominal leader. Around the edges and behind each seat were a slew of Quartermasters to represent their crews and representatives of the businesses on the island. All with Eleanor holding court in the middle of the long, oval table.

“This is a meeting for the Council of Nassau. Everyone not on the Account, shut the fuck up.” Eleanor spoke with that sharp authority that made men bristle because they heeded it or faced the consequences. Silver smirked and leaned back against the wall. “You all know why we’re here; the fort is vulnerable without a Steward, and Nassau is vulnerable without someone to protect it. We need a new Steward. Who’s it going to be?”

The room erupted into argument.

The election of a new Steward of the Fort shouldn’t take long. The protocols were simple; a Steward dies or is removed, the Council of Nassau with all the Merchant Lords and Brethren Captains was called, the Council voted. If there was no clear majority, a period of discussion and negotiation was permitted before a second vote was made. The process was repeated as often as needed until there was a clear outcome.

On the left side of the room, the merchants were arguing about money and payment. If the goal was to protect Nassau as a whole, then the whole of Nassau should control the fort, not a single man in charge of the structure like a captain in charge of a ship. And god forbid they should have to _pay_ this man to protect them with a tithe from their own profits. The Steward should do it out of honor and obligation and be grateful for the scraps the merchants sent his way.

Silver snorted when she heard that, garnering a dark look from the merchant who’d voiced that bit of idiocy.

From the right were arguments from the captains about which of them should give up their ship and the sea and sit in padded luxury and fire cannon at prey who came at them instead of hunting them down. Some Captains were for it and volunteered only to be jeered at by several others for their cowardice, while others still grumbled at the need for a Steward when England and Spain hadn’t even glanced their way for ten years.

Flint cut a look at the Captain who’d offered that opinion. “You’re a fucking idiot if you think England has forgotten us. And Spain will swivel it’s attention our way soon enough.” He didn’t need to say why. The _Urca_ gold and his near miss with the Spanish was as obvious as the Man of War sitting in the bay. “Without that fort Nassau sits defenseless and ripe for the taking. And I don’t know about you, Captain Frasier, but I’m not keen on bending over for either of them despite the offer of a royal fuck.”

A spatter of laughter from the Captains was his response as Frasier turned a dull red at the thought of being buggered by a King. And though his words weren’t loud , they carried across the Hall, quieting the arguments from the merchants about doing away with the Stewardship permanently. Most of those present were old enough to remember the oppressive laws and taxes levied from England when New Providence had been under its thumb, the lack of protection, the raids from Spain and lawless terror wrought before the Brethren Court had taken control of the town.

When the Hall remained quiet with its attention still on Flint, he took a breath and rose, glancing first at Silver then at Eleanor.

“Whether or not Nassau needs a Steward is not up for discussion, nor is the tithe owed to whomever takes that position,” he met the bursar’s eyes. When Holland nodded his agreement, effectively curtailing all future arguments from the Merchant Lords, Flint continued. “You all know the story. When Avery grounded his ship in order to protect Nassau, this Council was convened with four Thrones in mind; Commerce, Merchants, Brethren and Steward. What is up for decision is the position of Steward, and that alone.”

“So who would you put forward, Captain Flint,” a round man who captained the _Demeter_ sneered. “Yourself?”

Vane barked a laugh at that. “Can any of you actually imagine this man tethered to land?” there were a few chuckles at that, but Silver caught the aborted movement of Flint’s shoulders. From the flicker of his gaze, so did Vane who abruptly snarled like he’d been whipped. “And you, you shit,” Vane leaned forward, pointing a finger at the _Demeter’s_ captain. “You keep your mouth shut. Flint is one of the best Captain’s on this island next to me-” He pointedly ignored Flint’s smirk and Rackham’s sudden coughing fit. “You’ve been here what- two weeks? I don’t want to hear you unless it’s to offer your assistance.”

The sharp silence after that was broken when Mister Holland leaned forward. “Do you put yourself behind Flint, Captain Vane?”

Silver didn’t understand the tension that suddenly pervaded the room. Nor did she understand the sudden shift in power when Vane replied, “Until he gives me reason to do otherwise.”

Murmurs and mutterings erupted around the room as they took in that revelation. From the way Eleanor eyed them both with shock and the other Captains subtly shifted in their chairs it was an important one. The older Captains looked on in approval wile the younger ones grumbled but acquiesced. But it was Flint’s stony expression and widened eyes as he stared at Vane, who merely smirked back, that helped clue her in.

 _“Christ,”_ Silver hissed under her breath. “Did Vane just give the Brethren Throne to Flint?”

Max squeezed her arm and whispered back, “It’s not his to give, but they’ve been fighting for it for several months. Some say Vane had been close to calling the Brethren for a vote. Had Singleton won the _Walrus,_ Flint would have lost more than just his ship.”

 _Slow months,_ Silver thought. While Flint had been searching for the _Urca,_ Vane had been doing more than undermining Flint’s crew, he’d been gunning for Flint’s position on the Council as leader of the Brethren.

Silver glared until met Rackham met her gaze, his brows lifted in question. “You _cunt,”_ she hissed knowing he would hear her from across the room when he was paying attention, uncaring that all her protective instincts were riding her. “I’m _stabbing_ you first chance I get. I know that was your idea.”

Rackham winced and rubbed the back of his head, swallowing when he caught sight of his Captain smirking at him.

Silver opened her mouth to continue threatening him when Flint shifted, instantly pulling her gaze to his face. He shook his head at her, but one corner of his mouth was lifted in amusement.

“It goes both ways, I see,” Max murmured, shifting closer. “What is it you did that makes the fearsome Captain Flint think _you_ need a leash, hmm?”

Silver felt herself turn bright red as both Vane and Rackham coughed into their hands to hide their laughter while Flint’s amused smirk turned into an outright grin.

The Hall quieted down when Eleanor finally stood, her eyes on Flint. “If not yourself, then who _do_ you propose?”

In the heavy silence that followed, they could hear the breath Flint took before he spoke.

“Richard Guthrie sat on the Throne of Commerce when I arrived. Made men rich, they said. And his daughter took his place, made Nassau strong. Everyone knows this,” Flint continued, meeting the eyes of every man and woman at the table. “But I wonder how many know that there was one man standing behind them, standing behind both thrones, keeping the world spinning. He’s as invested in the future of this place as any.”

Eleanor straightened, her mouth tight and her fists clenched, obviously aware of who Flint was alluding to. Even the bursar and several of the older merchants and captains lifted their heads with realization. But it wasn’t until Mister Scott stood that Silver knew who Flint was talking about.

“I remember when I first saw it,” Scott said clearly, the awe in his voice apparent. “I’d never seen a structure like it; it seemed indestructible.”

Once again the room erupted into arguments. Noticeably the younger white men in the room sneering about ‘sugar monkeys’ being in charge of anything. The older men and women in the room, who’d been in Nassau for long enough, simply sat back and looked at Mister Scott appraisingly.

She’d only met him in passing; the night she’d made the deal with Flint and Vane, and on the _Andromache,_ he’d been chained with the slaves. She’d assumed, like the rest of the _Walrus_ crew, that he’d been taken prisoner when Captain Bryson fled Nassau, to hold as insurance against the Guthrie’s. Silver suddenly realized if that had been the case, Mister Scott would have still been employed by Eleanor and not gone over to Hornigold. The goings on in Nassau of the past several weeks; Richard Guthrie announcing to all and sundry that he was wanted by the Crown; that their business was closed; Eleanor’s desperate grab by creating the Consortium. 

Mister Scott had conspired with Richard Guthrie and Captain Bryson to stop Flint from taking the _Urca._ His reasons were obvious; threat of retaliation from Spain. But the Guthrie’s had been pirating ships from both England and Spain for over ten years, what would make Richard Guthrie balk now? He obviously wasn’t concerned about the Arrest Warrant despite their near miss with the English Warship.

Silver stiffened and shot her gaze to Flint, who was calmly looking back.

News on the street had the _Scarborough_ anchored forty miles from New Providence, with eighty troops billeted on the beach. Reconnaissance. That war Billy had mentioned, Flint’s urgency to retrieve the gold. The retrenchment Rackham spoke of.

This wasn’t theoretical, nor an argument used in order to gain the upper hand.

Keeping Flint’s gaze, she mouthed the word, _“War,”_ and watched with a sinking feeling as he nodded. When she mouthed, _“Now,”_ and he nodded again, she could feel her heart begin to pound.

“How do you know?”

Silver didn’t realize how loud she’s asked that until everyone in the room turned to her. But she didn’t care. She _needed_ to know.

And Flint understood. He sighed, “Because it’s what I would do.”

The silence indicated the confusion obvious in those watching. But Silver didn’t care about their audience. Something tightened in her gut as her mind made the connections. “You mean it’s what you _planned_ to do.”

Flint’s gaze turned steely but he never looked away. “Yes.”

“When?”

“Ten years ago,” Flint bit out, his anger growing at his inability to ignore her.

Silver took a step forward, shaking off Max's restraining hand. “When you were in the Royal Navy.”

The sudden drop in temperature around the room was as palpable as the heat in Flint’s eyes. _“Yes,”_ he growled at her, slamming his fist on the table when several mouths opened to question him. “I was here in Nassau when Teach dragged the Governor and his family into the street and slaughtered them. I’m the one who went back and reported the incident to the Sea Lords in London. I knew what they planned to do to eradicate the pirates then, it’s why I recognize their maneuvers now and how I know how to stop them.”

Silver kept his gaze for a long minute before she lowered her eyes, accepting and conceding his point. And that might have been enough for her, but apparently not for everyone else.

“How do we know you’re not a spy?”

It was an unfair question poorly asked by a portly Captain who was obviously feeling his authority because of his recent venture as a merchant Captain of the _Black Hind_ in Eleanor’s Consortium.

Flint just stared at the man, his jaw clenched but his eyes unblinking. _“What_ did you just say to me?”

There was a low rumble in the room that Silver could feel in her chest.

Captain Geoffrey Lawrence blanched as the men sitting near him removed themselves from his vicinity in an embarrassing stutter of retreat, making it obvious that they didn’t want to be in the way should Flint attack.

To Captain Lawrence’ credit, the man didn’t back down or withdraw his question, but he did stutter as he repeated it. “You say you were in the Royal Navy and you know their plans to take back Nassau. How do we know you are not working against us?”

Flint’s face was frightening; sharp cheekbones, fierce eyes nearly blazing, and his lips pulled back to reveal teeth sharper than normal – though thankfully not fully transformed – as he leaned forward on the table, his shoulders bunched and his hands spread as though he would climb on top of it so that he could reach the other Captain to eviscerate him.

“Because England _took_ from me, punished me, and cast me out, and I’m not about to let them _take more.”_ His voice was a guttural howl that made several men step back, swallowing as something atavistic warned them of the predator in the room. “Does that satisfy you, _Captain_ Lawrence?”

The man simply nodded, no doubt relieved to be spared his life.

Flint then cast his gaze at every single person sitting at the table before straightening to look at Mister Scott. “If there are no other objections, and no other candidates pushed forward for the position, I suggest you vote this man in as Steward so that the rest of us can get on with our day.”

After a short moment where no one else moved for fear of drawing Flint’s attention, Eleanor Guthrie straightened in her seat and banged the cannonball on the table. “All who vote for Mister Scott as our new Steward, say ‘aye’.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Vous stupide, stupide fille! Comment diable suis-je censé vous rembourser si vous continuez à vous mettre en danger?_ ~ You stupid, stupid girl! How the hell am I supposed to repay you if you keep putting yourself in danger?  
>  _Cela aiderait beaucoup si vous arrêtiez de faire chier vos patrons. D'autant plus que j'espère être votre prochain_. ~ It would help very much if you stopped pissing your bosses off. Especially since I hope to be your next one.  
>  _Tu ne veux pas dire ça _. ~ You don’t mean that._  
>  _Es tu sur de vouloir savoir?_ ~ Are you sure you want to know?  
>  _Mon dieu__ ~ My god


	5. XIII.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Explanations and war plans.
> 
> Also. Two things about Max that I wanted to explain.
> 
> One: Unlike most of the other characters' whose driving forces are anchored in negative emotions (i.e. revenge, anger, hatred, greed, lust) Max's single driving force has always been - to my eye - the need to be loved. She wanted to be loved. she'd give everything up if she only found someone who would love her for it. It's why i felt such pity when we were first introduced to her because she kept latching onto these women who could never love her completely the way she wanted them to. It's what caused the tension between her and Eleanor and the tug-of-war between her Anne Bonny, and Jack Rackham.
> 
> Two: That Max doesn't understand this is what's truly sad and appealing about her character. She humanizes the rest of them because her needs are simple and not grandiose or far-reaching.
> 
> It makes her one of my favorite - yet hardest characters to write. I can only hope I do her justice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo. My inner historian came out to play TP-Toss with the plot-monkeys as soon as I started to research actual historical goings-on in the year 1715. And then my inner fiction writer _laughed maniacally_ behind the historian’s back while she loosed the rabid multi-colored plot-bunnies, took liberties, changed facts, and edited to her black little heart’s content using sparkly gel pens and emoji **{#$!@}** stickers.
> 
> Enjoy.
> 
> * _whimper_ *

_**1715 – Nassau, New Providence Island** _

Silver walked as fast as she could without running to get to the tavern. She knew Flint would be busy with finalizing the vote and approving the articles of the Council of Nassau, and she did not want to be in his eyesight when he finished.

“ _Putain, à quoi pensiez-vous?_ ” Max hissed, limping along beside her.

Silver scoffed, “It’s very clear that I wasn’t thinking, obviously.”

 _“Cher,”_ Max tried, grabbing her arm and almost falling when Silver wrenched it away. Silver swallowed back her guilt at exacerbating the woman’s injuries and instead grabbed Max’s elbow, letting her lean her weight against it and helping her along the packed sand to the tavern. “I do not understand,” Max kept her voice low but it was turning shrill.

“What’s to understand?” Silver glanced around as they cut through an alley to come to some stairs that would lead to the veranda. “I lost my head a little when I put the clues together and realized that our dear, fearsome Captain Flint had a rather regimented past with the English Navy.”

“Everyone here has a past,” Max used the rails on the veranda to pull herself along as Silver stalked toward the rooms Max had previously occupied. “And that is not exactly what I mean, _ma cher.”_

“Then I don’t know what the hell you _do_ mean, my dear.” Silver threw open the veranda doors and nearly prowled to the small table in the middle of the wrecked room, righting it with a jerk while she berated herself for her stupidity. She pulled the packet of papers from her vest and threw them on the tabletop, then started pulling off her vest and belt, divesting herself of pouches and purse, wallet and trinkets. The leather cord on her wrist caught and snapped, sending coin sized carved beads spilling onto the floor like the discarded mementos they were. Silver froze. She nearly screamed with frustration. Just one more thing in her life ripping out of her control.

Her chest hurt, her throat burned and her eyes stung. And Silver was horrified to realize that she wanted to _cry._ She hunched over, curling her shoulders down as she bowed her head over the table and forced herself to breathe.

 _“Cherie?”_ Max eased forward, her hand cupping Silver’s shoulder, gently rubbing like she was soothing a wild animal. “Why does this news of the Captain being a Lieutenant distress you so?”

Silver nearly hissed, but was interrupted by her diaphragm spasming in a hiccup. She clenched her fist, sucked in a deep breath and held it. God, she hadn’t felt this nearly out of control in almost a year.

“Do you know my mother was murdered for the unforgivable sin of loving my father?” Silver breathed out, almost hoping Max didn’t hear her. But the sudden clench of fingers on her shoulder and the quiet gasp put paid to that wish.

“I do not pretend to be naïve,” Max said quietly. “I know what it is to be hated and ridiculed by those that should love and protect.”

Silver laughed and it hurt coming up out of her throat. “That’s the incredible part,” Silver straightened, determined to ignore the tear tracks on her cheeks for as long as possible. “I _was_ protected and loved. I was my grandmother’s pride, my family’s bright future. They coddled me like the princess I actually was and all the while they blamed my mother for having the audacity to breed with a man below her station, despite the fact that man turned out to be a Hungarian Prince in his own right, with wealth and power to rival my grandmother’s.”

Max’s face, when Silver finally turned to look, was wide-eyed but confused. “What are you saying? What does your father’s death have to do with Flint’s past?”

“My father was sent to infiltrate the Basque warrior tribes of northern Spain in order to bring about their downfall because my Grandfather supported King Philip, who in turn wanted to put his own people in charge of the land owed to the Székely in Hungary to finance his reign. Instead of bringing the downfall of King Philip, my father married the daughter of Zilarra Argent Vaumesle d’Anjou, direct female descendant of Ermengarde d’Anjou, Duchess Consort of Burgundy and cousin of King Philip, fell in love with her, and took her with him when he went to join Prince Rákóczi.”

When Charles II of Spain died childless in November 1700, it triggered the War of Spanish Succession between the Austrian Habsburg Philip and the French Bourbon Charles. Either gaining an undivided Spain threatened the European balance of power and thus was played out on the world stage, involving all the world’s powers and provoking several other conflicts, including Queen Anne’s War in the Americas, the Camisard revolt in Southern France, and Rákóczi’s War of Independence in Hungary. That King Philip V, direct male descendent of Ermengarde d’Anjou, Duchess Consort of Burgundy, had come out of that skirmish on top was the result of years of treaties, bargains, thrones bought and sold, promises broken, and familial honor discarded like soiled handkerchiefs. It had little to do with the Holy Roman Empire and Charles losing support in Europe and a lot to do with England shifting support from France who offered sanctuary to James Stuart, to a Habsburg King in order to support King George I, a Protestant over 56 hereditary Catholic heirs to the Throne of Great Britain.

Even as far as the French West Indies, princes, kings and bishops using literal armies to prove which had a bigger dick, was the fodder of gossip and speculation. Silver could see from the widening of her eyes, that Max had heard that gossip and speculation, enough to put together the facts. A Hungarian Prince supporter of King Charles with a cousin of King Philip held in his court? Not as a hostage but as wife to a Prince-Elect?

It wasn’t a wonder Silver’s mother had been killed by her family in the name of honor; it was a wonder Silver hadn’t been murdered right alongside her for the crime of living with traitorous blood.

 _“Argent…?”_ Max whispered and Silver stiffened, having forgotten until this very moment that Max had been training with Able. “You’re a hunter?”

Silver turned to eye Max and the way she seemed to cower back from her and put up an uncaring façade, all without moving a muscle. “My family are hunters, yes.” In point of fact, her family might very well be responsible for the widespread ‘wolf’ hunts of the 15th and 16th centuries that were the spear tip of the Spanish Inquisition.

Max tipped her head to the side as if studying something fascinating. “But you are not? Because of this betrayal?”

“I learned of that betrayal when I was eighteen,” she admitted, unwilling to lie, even now. “That was nearly four years ago. My mother paying for her crimes? That I could be forced to accept.”

“Then why-?”

Silver lifted her chin. “My father was _Voivode_ Nicholas Neuri Örlöcz Kovasna, a Székely prince of the Covasna Province in Hungary. The Székely are border guards, an ancient tribe of people descended of the Neuri, a tribe once known for turning into wolves, according to Herodotus. And when he came to collect me when I turned twenty-one, my grandfather Antoine Vaumesle d’Enneval, the Spanish Royal Coat of Arms Bearer, cut him in half in front of me. Then my grandmother had me beaten and held in the stocks for a week to prove that I wasn’t a wolf myself.”

Max, to her credit, didn’t cringe back or show any overt signs of pity; either response would have earned Silver’s enmity. Instead, she stepped forward and cupped Silver’s cheek.

“ _Je pleure avec toi_.”

And suddenly Silver could feel those tears threatening again. In a desperate bid to distract, she waved her hand at the papers and ducked to start collecting the beads Palmer had given her from Oates. "According to Mister Holland, those are all of Noonan’s holdings, both business and personal.”

Max lifted a brow with an expression that distinctly announced that they weren’t done, before turning to rifle through the pages. “Mmm. How did you get the bursar to give these to you?”

“Idelle had copies of all his receipts,” Silver sat once she’d collected all of the beads and put them inside her belt purse and righted one of the intact chairs. “It was easy enough to forge a Letter of Mark that stated I had become Noonan’s silent business partner in lieu of payment for a portion of my share of _Urca_ gold.”

Max hummed again, “Implying that Noonan would sell his business to you in full once you had the gold in hand for trade?”

Silver nodded and started removing her boots. “That was the idea.”

“And you will become a tavern and brothel owner instead of a ship’s cook?”

“Flint plans to sail come morning in two days,” Silver murmured distractedly as she finally dropped the first boot, lifting her heel onto the edge of the chair so that she could check her toes. The bruise from dislocating three of her toes in a fight with Hammond the week earlier had turned a sickly green and was starting to fade into yellow, but the last few days in a pair of borrowed boots that pinched had not done her any favors. She wondered if she could visit the tanner before they left again. “I figure between the two of us, we can get the books at least sorted before then, if not balanced.”

“You do not intend to stay.”

It was her strangely flat tone that had Silver lifting her head to eye her. “No. I’ve found that the crew requires two leaders to function; one to tell them what to do; and another to tell them why they should want do it. In Mister Gates’ absence, and Dufresne’s ineptitude, the latter role was unfilled. I thought I could fill it.”

Max’s face darkened. “Flint killed Gates, a friend he’s kept close for many years. And here you stand in line for his hand on your throat. You are either very dangerous or very stupid, _ma cher.”_

“Possibly a bit of both,” Silver smirked. “But I am certain I will avoid the mistake Gates made; I don’t _believe_ in him. To me he is a means of securing a very valuable prize. No more, no less.”

“I do not believe you,” Max said evenly. When Silver frowned and opened her mouth to argue, Max lifted a hand. “Oh yes, he is a means of securing a fortune for all of us. Of that I have no doubt. But I saw your face, _cherie,_ when Captain Lawrence accused Captain Flint of being a spy and he explained; you were relieved. I see the way you watch him when you think no else sees. Even if you do not believe _in_ him, he means something to you.”

And Silver… sat back with a silent huff. She had no reason to disbelieve the woman. Max had a talent for reading people, it’s what made her so good at her chosen profession. If she said she saw something in the way Silver looked at Flint, then Silver believed her. She could even admit to herself that Silver was fascinated by the man, beyond mere physical attraction, of which there was plenty – he was a healthy man in his prime, a proven leader, with an edge of dangerousness in his demeanor beyond the mere fact of his _otherness,_ which Silver was realizing she didn’t mind in the slightest. She obviously had more of her mother in her than her grandmother would approve of. The thought made her hurt inner child want to rub the information in the old woman’s nose, but a slight shiver of apprehension made her grateful her family had no clue of her whereabouts.

Suddenly a body was sliding onto Silver’s lap and Max’s lush frame filled Silver’s vision. Silver shivered at the way Max curved into her, nails sliding over her collarbones and up along her neck until they curled gently in the hairs at the nape of her neck.

“What are you doing?” Silver asked, her eyes closing as she basked in the tender teasing and physical closeness. She hadn’t realized how much she’d become skin hungry until Billy allowed her to touch without expecting her to _provide._

“It was not my intent to make you uncomfortable,” Max murmured, rocking slowly enough on Silver’s lap that she could mistake the movement for Max simply breathing deeply. “Only to point out an obvious, _comment dites-vous…_ chink in your armor?”

Silver chuckled deprecatingly, “Obvious, huh?”

“Only to some,” Max hummed, a smile growing on her bitten lips, a gleam of spit-shine on the lower one to catch the eye.

Silver’s smile widened as she leaned forward, dodging Max’s mouth and catching her thighs as she stood and took the two steps forward – aiming for the mattress still on the frame, and not the one listing off the side like a drunkard – to drop Max on top of the bed along with her smile. “Don’t play me,” Silver warned, catching Max’s ankle as it slithered up toward her hip.

Max froze, coy laughter dropping from her face. “I was not-”

“You were,” Silver argued, squeezing her ankle gently before pushing her away. “And if I thought for a moment you meant it, I might even take you up on it. But I don’t need you to fuck me to feel like I’m getting my money’s worth out of you.”

Max straightened with a jerk. “I was not fucking you to prove myself.”

“Weren’t you?” Silver jerked her chin at the loosened ties on Max’s bodice, the way her skirts were hiked around her thighs. As Max shoved down her skirts and pulled her bodice closed, Silver sat on the bed beside her. “I need you Max, I need you to manage this place while I manage Flint, and I don’t for a minute believe you want me this way. Not so soon after the way Eleanor treated you.”

Max sucked in a breath but didn’t say anything.

Silver slowly reached out, pleased when Max didn’t recoil as she clasped their hands together. “You said you were mine after the beach and I believed you. It’s going to take a lot of time to pay that debt, time we have, time I’m willing to give you, if you can trust me.”

Max turned and Silver met her eyes.

“Can you trust me?”

It was a long minute before Max squeezed her hand and nodded. Silver sighed out as Max bent her head to lean against Silver’s shoulder. They sat there, just resting against each other for a moment.

“How are we to do this?” Max muttered.

Silver didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “All of Noonan’s business ventures are in that pile of papers Holland gave me. Beyond a place to call my own – I saw a bungalow just off the beach in that mess – I’m handing it to you to manage; you know this town better than I do and know what will bring a good price and what won’t. I suggest we keep anything that turns a profit and divest ourselves of everything else, use the funds to shore up what we have and pay off the few bills he was letting pile up. I know you can handle the girls here. For a few weeks, give steep discounts to the businessmen who deal directly with us; I want them amendable to any changes we make. Noonan was good about servicing the men, not taking care of the girls. With that in mind, talk to Mister Scott about protection – just a man or two a night; we’ll pay, I don’t want them expecting favors or taking it in trade. Gleaning information from them was a good idea, but let me be the one to determine which tips we take from Eleanor, and which we let leave be.” Silver could feel Max bristle and squeezed her hand before she could say anything, “Let me deal with her.”

Max scoffed, “No one just deals with Miss Eleanor Guthrie, Merchant Princess of Nassau.”

“I admit, it won’t be easy,” Silver smirked while she took in the wreckage of the room. “But I think I can suitably tweak her nose without letting her know it was done with malice aforethought.”

“If anyone could…” Max sighed.

Silver chuckled.

“What about Able?” Max asked.

Silver frowned, forcibly turning her mind from other things. “What about him?”

“How will I pay him a year and a day if I’m managing this place for you?”

And Silver tipped her head, intrigued by that problem. Her eyes went to the stack of papers spread on the table as an idea occurred to her. “You’ve spent more time with him, do you think he’d be adverse to bringing his shop into town?”

Max snorted. “Where he could get a steady stream of customers and not need to eke out a living on the fringes, spreading rumors that he is a witch instead of a medicine man?”

“In that case,” Silver grinned. “There’s a small shop with a living quarters upstairs wedged in an alley not far from the Main Street. I think Noonan won the title to it in a bet.”

Max lifted her head, a smile slowly spreading on her lips. “That sounds lovely.”

* * *

Morning came with a pounding headache and a pounding fist on the door. Silver groaned and burrowed further under her pillow. In the bed beside her, a body sighed and rolled up onto an elbow. “Yes?”

A voice called to Max. “Is Silver in there with you?”  
Max called out an affirmative and then said, “We’ll be down in a minute,” when they told of a man looking for her. Then Max collapsed back to the mattress. “Best you be on your way.”

Silver groaned and pulled herself up, catching the blanket against her chest when she realized she was naked. “Did you strip me?”

Max waved a hand at the room in answer. When Silver let her eyes wander, she remembered. They’d found a bottle of wine and finished it off between them while sifting through the wreckage of the room; setting aside sheets and blankets that needed mending, resettling the mattresses as best they could without opening a seam and stuffing them. They’d lifted the armoire back into place and wedged one of the doors closed until the cabinetmaker could reset the hinge. The cracked mirror would do until another could replace it, but two of the chairs were for the woodpile, the spindly legs and back broken in too many places to fix them. At one point, Max had ordered hot water for a bath and to clean their clothes with the sliver of soap she’d hidden under a floorboard.

Clothes which were still hung on the rope they’d strung between the bed and the veranda doors.  
“Shit,” Silver muttered and wedged herself upright just as the door from the hall burst open to reveal Billy Bones.

“Good, you’re here,” Billy stepped into the room and closed the door behind him before striding across to grab her arm and yank her to her feet. “We need to go-” He blinked at her nudity before looking around. “Get dressed,” he started, walking toward the line and pulling off the trousers and shirt he recognized as hers, grimacing a little before tossing them her way.

Silver caught them before they hit her face and immediately understood why he’d grimaced – they were still damp. “Shit,” she muttered again.

“Here,” Max, who’d wrapped a blanket around her like a sarong, called as she dug into a familiar carpet bag and pulled out a surprisingly plain pair of underthings. One was linen pants, tied at the hips and waist and absurdly comfortable as Silver found when she slipped them up her hips. The other was a short, nude colored linen camisole that she recognized as the type designed for women to wear under riding habits; it tied under the bust and at the sides, offering support and at the same time restrained the breasts.

Silver glanced up as she pulled it on, meeting Max’s eyes. “Thank you,” she started, only to spit out a pair of clean woolen socks tossed in her face. She glared at Billy who was oblivious as he gathered her things. “What’s the hurry?”

“Jack came to get me,” Billy started, clutching her sash, belt, knife and pouches in one hand, her boots and vest in the other. “Vane came back to the ship pissed as all fuck because Richard Guthrie was in with his daughter all night.”

Silver swore and eeled into her trousers and shirt as fast as she could, muttering under her breath as the damp cloth stuck to her skin before dropping to the end of the bed to pull on the boots he handed her.

“That’s about the full of it,” Billy smirked at her use of animal parts. “Jack thinks the man is trying to broker a partnership between Miss Guthrie’s new Consortium and the Plantation owners inland.”

Silver stomped into her boots and reached for her sash and belt. “Wouldn’t that be a good thing? Bringing a measure of validity to Nassau trade?”

Billy shrugged. “He seemed to think not if it was happening under cover of darkness.”

“Where the fuck is Flint in all this?” Silver shrugged into her vest and didn’t bother to do up the ties as she grabbed the rest of her things from Billy and started after him toward the veranda. At the last second she spun to face the other woman. “Max-”

“Partners,” Max lifted a hand and waved to the papers. “I’ll organize this, talk to Able and start on the books. It will be here when you finish. Don’t worry.”

“Thank you,” Silver dipped her head and turned to follow Billy, her mind firmly shifting to Flint and ship business. “Billy, where’s Flint?”

They walked to the bridge that connected the brothel house and Guthrie’s tavern. “He was on the beach this morning, organizing the men and supplies to split between the _Revenge_ and the _Fancy,_ and then Muldoon grabs me and says Flint took off toward town after the Barlow woman.”

Silver nearly tripped. “She’s here?”

“Muldoon saw them arguing on the sand,” Billy glanced at her, watching dispassionately as she pulled the buckle tight on her belt, settled everything at her waist and started on the frogs on her vest. “Said he saw them head to Guthrie’s.”

Silver muttered under her breath and followed him across through the maze of bridges until they came to the small back room of Guthrie’s.

Billy dipped his head and led the way inside and to the front where Silver knew there was a meeting room above Eleanor’s office, “Jack seems to think this is important. Told me what was happening just before he went to find Vane. That’s when a boy found me, said Flint wanted us in the meeting.”

Silver blinked and grabbed his arm, pulling him around. “Where is Dufresne?”

“He didn’t come back to the ship last night.”

“Does Flint know?”

Billy nodded, “I’m fairly sure that’s why the Captain called this meeting. That and to discuss the coming war.”

“What meeting?”

“The Thrones.”

Silver grit her teeth and nearly started cursing, but she caught the sound of an argument going on in the room in front of her.

“ _Yes there is!_ ” And that was Flint. He said something more but it was muffled. Silver stepped forward and put her hand on the door only to freeze as she heard a woman yell back “ _There is no other way once you’re willing to tell the truth about your intentions here!_ ”

Billy and Silver locked eyes; Billy wary but Silver confused. That was obviously the Barlow woman. But what the hell were they talking about? Flint’s intentions? From what Silver had seen over the past few weeks, Flint’s intentions had always been for a stronger Nassau. He’d stood fast while accusations of theft and lies were thrown at him. When his closest friend had lost faith, he’d readily sacrificed the man for his goal. Silver had thought it was to gain an unimaginable prize. She remembered the way Flint had promised the men that he’d make them ‘Princes of the New World.’ From what she remembered from what Billy said about that day, he’d wanted to be King. She suspected that his intentions were more closely aligned with hers; enough wealth to be free, truly free. None of this was a surprise, and none of it sounded like a betrayal of the Account or of Nassau, so why was the Barlow’s woman’s accusation making the hair lift on the back of her neck?

Silver reached for the door again, careful to keep her hand on the latch so that there was no sound as she pushed the door open enough to hear the Barlow woman accuse Flint of fighting for the sake of fighting to keep the voice in his head from driving him mad.

Flint voice, when he responded made Silver clench her teeth with a need to _duck._ “What are you talking about? What voice?”

“The one telling you to be ashamed of yourself for having loved him.”

 _“Christ,”_ Silver mouthed, afraid of being overheard as a great many things about Flint suddenly made themselves clear.

The Barlow woman continued, oblivious to her audience. “You were told that it was shameful, and part of you believed it. Thomas was my husband. I loved him and he loved me. But what he shared with you? It was entirely something else. It’s time you allowed yourself to accept that.”

Silver winced and shook her head, an edge of anger creeping through, because that? That had been a touch of jealousy in the woman’s voice. As a form of emotional manipulation, it was blatant and deliberately hurtful. Yet this was a woman that Flint obviously trusted, who trusted him enough to follow him from England. But somewhere along the way, Silver suspected the Barlow woman realized just how much her husband loved James, and she’d become jealous.

Flint’s voice, when he responded was soft, and Silver could hear the slight ripple of emotion in it. “The only thing I’m ashamed of is that I didn’t do something to save him when we had the chance. And instead I listened to you.”

There was a quiet shuffle of feet and then a delicate thump. And then someone was walking toward the door. Billy nearly jumped back but Silver didn’t bother as an older woman in a modest dress walked out of the room and then froze as she caught sight of the two of them. After a quick glance at the door, she pulled it closed behind her before turning to face them.

“That was not for you to overhear,” the woman straightened, her bearing was a proud one though she looked worn down and a little saddened.

“No, I don’t suppose it was,” Silver caught all of this with a quick glance, quickly putting together all the disparate facts she knew about Flint and this woman – facts she’d gleaned from rumors and hearsay and observation. “But overheard it has been.”

This was a woman who knew Flint longer than Gates had, likely before he was even called Flint. From what Silver had overheard, this woman likely new exactly what England had taken from him, why he’d been punished and cast out. And now she was using that to try and make him do something. Silver didn’t know what, but the way Flint had sounded at that last? Silver was angry, livid. And if she didn’t suspect that Flint would be the first person to defend the her, Silver would have gone for the Barlow woman’s throat herself for making her Captain sound that broken.

Miranda Barlow clutched her satchel to her chest and lifted her chin. “I think you should leave.”

Three things became immediately clear to Silver in that instant. One; Flint might be wolf, but this woman was not. She was obviously intelligent – her association with Flint would have been much shorter-lived if she weren’t as Flint had little patience for fools and absolutely no qualms about discarding sentiment in the face of his goals – of very good breeding, a lady of some standing back in London before her subsequent fall, and philosophical enough to understand that two men could love each other without the religious ‘sin’ aspect coming into play. All together, that painted a clear picture of a woman with political savvy and the know-how to wield it. A valuable ally and dangerous opponent.

Two; this woman wanted something, something she wasn’t getting here in Nassau or on New Providence. On an island at the edge of the known world, where products and consumables of all kinds flowed through her markets, there was very little unavailable but for the asking, and absolutely no laws to hinder any kind of behavior considered reprehensible by polite society. The only things not readily available were the makings of a well-rounded education – of which this woman had very little need as evidenced from the way she spoke – the refined entertainment and fashions demanded by civilized society as a requirement of class, and the stature and titles with which to wield all three to great effect.

And three; Max had been right. Silver _did_ care more for Flint than she’d let herself acknowledge. Enough that had she been a wolf she might have lost control of her instincts and ripped this woman’s throat out. As it was, she must have been angry enough for Billy to catch on, because he hid his confusion and straightened up behind her, a staunch ally, ready and willing to throw himself into whatever was about to happen to protect her back.

“Funny,” Silver murmured, taking a step forward, inexplicably pleased when the woman stumbled back a step. “I was just about to say the same to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
>  _Putain, à quoi pensiez-vous?_ – Fuck, what were you thinking?  
>  _Je pleure avec toi._ – I grieve with you.  
>  _Ma cher_ – my dear  
>  _Cherie_ – darling  
>  _Comment dites-vous…?_ – How do you say…?


	6. XIV.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Silver confronts Miranda... maybe. A bit more Vane - just for you. And a moment with the banshee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, family took precedence. Hope you're all doing well! Miss getting your feedback constantly. :D

_**1715 – Nassau, New Providence Island** _

A bevy of voices broke the quiet below the stairs as Vane, obviously followed by Rackham climbed to the second story. As they reached the top, Silver noted out of the corner of her eye that Vane had a grip on Eleanor’s arm and wasn’t about to let go.

“Should just let me kill him,” Vane grumbled.

Eleanor frowned at him, “That’s my father, you’re talking about.”

The man in question followed close after the trio with Anne Bonny bringing up the rear. As they reached the top and turned toward the meeting room, they all froze at the tableau of the Barlow woman backed against the door, Silver standing in front of her with Billy at her back. Silver wasn’t surprised when the wolves and Bonny took only a breath before squaring up against the Barlow woman, despite obviously not recognizing her face. She was surprised, however, when Eleanor wrenched her arm from Vane’s grasp and moved to the woman’s side.

“Missus Barlow,” Eleanor smiled. “You came.”

And, oh, did _that_ make sense. Silver knew that they’d been acquainted – if one could call it that – during the time that Richard Guthrie had been convalescing from his unfortunate run-in with the Captain of the _Scarborough_ while being kept out of sight at the Barlow woman’s house so that he wouldn’t reveal to the town exactly what he’d announced days after ‘escaping’ from Miranda Barlow’s custody. But the fact that Richard Guthrie was in town trying to convince his daughter of a business deal with the inner island plantation owners while at the same time Miranda Barlow was trying to convince Flint of something? Silver rocked back on her heels as she started putting together the plot.

“Of course,” Miranda Barlow simpered. “You asked me to talk to him, and I have.”

Silver was likely the only one to catch the woman's mild confusing before her face settled into the easy half-truth.

“I was under the impression you weren't coming after all,” Eleanor glanced between them before looking back to Miranda. “What are you doing out here, then?”

The Barlow woman met Silver’s gaze. “I was just asking them to leave.”

Eleanor’s brows rose as she looked at Silver then. Silver smirked as she crossed her arms and leaned back, feeling Billy’s heat just behind her. Vane looked confrontational, as always, while Rackham looked amused and Bonny watched with an air of waiting, as though she was expecting a fight at any moment. And to be fair, Silver _wanted_ to fight this woman. Silver had an urge to put this woman _in the ground_ , as every instinct and bit of training she’d accumulated over her years told her the older woman was dangerous, and not just to Flint, but to Silver specifically. It made Silver want to bare her teeth and snarl, but she clenched her fingers on her biceps and smiled blandly at Eleanor.

Before anyone could open their mouths and say anything, the door behind the Barlow woman was jerked open to reveal Flint. With red eyes and pale skin, he looked a mess, but he didn’t let any of his surprise at Miranda’s continued presence or their appearance show beyond blinking at Miranda and quirking a brow at Silver. “Loitering in the hall, are we?”

Silver grinned and shouldered passed Eleanor and Missus Barlow. “How else am I to know what goes on in your devious mind?”

Flint quirked a brow at her as he turned to follow her into the room, leaving the door ajar behind him, “Ask?”

Silver snorted and made her way to a chair along the far wall, aware of the stuttered tension being dragged into the room behind her. Billy nodded to Flint, determinedly walking to take position along the wall beside Silver. Vane gently shoved Eleanor to one side of the room, followed by Rackham and Bonny, and growled low and menacing when Richard Guthrie made to follow his daughter. Nonplussed, the former Merchant Lord looked to Flint and the Barlow woman, who was eyeing the way Flint kicked a chair to sit so that his back was to Silver and Billy, Vane’s crew on his right.

When no one gave him direction or – as Silver suspected – pulled a chair out for him to sit, Richard Guthrie pulled out two chairs on the opposite side of the table and motioned for Miranda Barlow to sit with him. After a brief glance at Flint, she sat, her back stiff but her head bowed. Silver eyed them both before looking to her captain and noticing that his spine was just as stiff, his shoulders nearly knotted, the hand he rested on a leather bound book on the table shook before he made a fist and then shoved the book in a coat pocket. Silver caught Miranda’s lips turning up at the corners. The book was from her, then, and of some value to Flint if his reactions were this strong over it. But she’d hurt him, badly and not for the first time, and Silver wasn’t sure how he’d react to it.

So she leaned forward, waiting only briefly for him to notice her regard. “If I asked, would you answer?”

He turned further until he met her eye and lifted a corner of his mouth to remark, “Good point.”

It was a non-answer and said off hand, but she sat back, pleased when she noticed the line of his shoulders had softened and his hand was no longer fisted on his thigh. Beside her, Billy just sighed and looked upward, as though his answers would be found there.

The room stayed quiet, waiting, and Silver understood why a moment later when Mister Scott came in, followed by another burly black ex-slave, the bursar Mister Holland, and a very familiar bespectacled man.

Silver clenched her teeth but held her tongue as Flint sighed aloud enough for the both of them.

“Is this where you ran off to?” Flint sounded resigned.

Dufresne lifted his head and sneered, “You didn’t give me much choice.”

“You know what the men will do when they realize that not only are you a failed mutineer but a deserter as well?” It was asked casually, as if they were discussing the weather. But Silver could see the way Flint was clenching his fist on his thigh again, out of sight of those on the other side of the table.

Mister Holland settled into a chair at the end of the table with a sigh. “They’ll do nothing as he’s in my employ now.”

Flint grinned but it was more a baring of teeth and everyone in the room knew it. “He’ll do well there, then. And perhaps be happier for it.”

From the looks Vane and Rackham shared, Silver knew it was a position none of the crew in this room were going to allow him to keep when Mister Holland succumbed to old age; Dufresne as the new bursar would literally be a hellish outcome for all those who the man thought had wronged him, no matter his own culpability. Silver wondered how long until he suffered a tragic accident, and whether or not Dufresne realized that his actions today had literally sealed his fate.

Mister Scott leaned forward, his steady gaze on Vane. “For what you did to Captain Low, I thank you.”

Vane blinked then turned away and gruffly replied, “It wasn’t for you.”

“I am aware,” Scott straightened and glanced at Eleanor before looking to his own chair. “I thank you for that as well.”

Silver sat forward, her curiosity peaked. “How _did_ you kill him, then?”

Vane huffed a laugh, remembering their last conversation. “It wasn’t hard.”

“And yet he killed Hornigold,” Silver asserted.

Vane blinked at her before he leaned back in his chair. “What do you want to know?”

Silver tipped her head as she though about what questions to ask to determine what kind of creature he was. But before she opened her mouth, Richard Guthrie leaned forward.

“What does this matter?”

Silver turned and pinned the man with her gaze. It was really the first time she was getting a good look at him, and she could tell from just that look that he was soft, gently raised, likely spoiled as a child and ignored by his family as an adult. It had turned him into an attention-seeking money-grubber with a wily mind who likely put on airs to make himself feel more important, as he’d never done a days honest hard work in his life. The perpetual downturn of his mouth said he was dissatisfied with what he had, and the way he disregarded his only daughter said he thought – likely by a father who thought the same – that women were the lesser sex in every way that counted. The fact that his father was Lord Guthrie of Boston, the Shipping Baron of Guthrie Enterprises, with ties to all the major ports in the known world, made her think that this man’s mother likely perpetuated that belief so as to run things smoothly and quietly, in the background.

She made a mental note to question Eleanor about her grandmother should she ever have the occasion to need that information and she answered the former Merchant Lord.

“To you? Not much, I’m afraid.”

Flint shifted, turning his head just enough to meet her gaze over his left shoulder. Silver swallowed back whatever else she might have said and turned back to Vane “Did Captain Low _change?”_

“If he could, I didn’t give him the opportunity,” Vane offered. “Though he did stink like rotten eggs, come to think of it.”

Silver wrinkled her nose at the memory smell of sulfur. “Did he say anything?”

“Besides constantly threatening to fuck me in the ass and make everybody watch?” Vane huffed out.

Silver stiffened as something twigged her memory. “Did his eyes turn dark?”

“Yeah,” Vane sucked in a breath. “Even the one whited out by his scar. Black as pitch from lid to lid.”

“Popobawa,” Silver muttered, disgusted.

Mister Scott grunted, obviously recognizing the name. “Not a demon?”

Silver glanced at him, surprised before she remembered his presence alongside Able that first night. She tipped her head, “Unlikely, also the threat of public sodomy is a big clue; Popobawa prefers an audience, demons do not. And Vane didn’t describe smoke when he tore off Ned Low’s head.”

“No,” Vane said lowly. “I did not.”

She glanced at him, wondering what had made his hackles lift.

Before she could ask, Dufresne was scoffing. “Have you all gone mad?”

Silver nearly startled, having forgotten the man was there. With the possible exception of Mister Scott’s companion and Mister Holland, Dufresne was the only one in the room that didn’t _know_ about the supernatural among them. Which, for Silver, was another mark against his observation skills; even the most clueless sailor got a hint that _something else_ was among the men when taking out an enemy by the throat got him praises and nods of respect instead of wary looks and distance.

“Come now,” When everyone, including Mister Holland gave him suspicious looks, Dufresne scoffed at them. “We’re all intelligent people, there’s no need to start telling horror stories as an excuse for Captain Vane’s violent tendencies.”

Rackham gaped at him, “How did your brain even learn human speech?”

Bonny ducked her face into Rackham’s shoulder to hide her giggles.

Dufresne looked stunned. “You actually all believe this nonsense?” he flung a hand toward Silver and Vane while imploring the Guthrie’s and Holland. “This is preposterous!”

“Sit down, boy,” Mister Holland grimaced, as if realizing exactly what he’d be taking on.

“You’re all mad,” Dufresne intoned, his wild gaze zeroed in on Silver, who grinned at him with her teeth. When his expression hardened and he took a threatening step forward, the wolves around all tensed to react but it was Holland who stood in his path, seemingly much larger than his frail build would allow.

 _“Get out, boy,”_ it was said in a treble voice that echoed down into the floor and rattled the rafters, causing a light sifting of dust to come loose. Dufresne turned white as a sheet before stumbling back from Holland and out the door.

They all stared at the empty doorway for a minute before Flint sighed. “Should have done that the first time.”

Silver snickered while Billy and Rackham outright laughed. Vane just grinned as all the others simply shook their heads, knowing the realization that you weren’t the scariest thing in the world was a deeply personal one.

“Oh dear,” Miranda murmured, her frown not nearly so free of amusement as she’d like to believe. “I don’t believe that was necessary, Mister Holland.”

“Entirely necessary madam,” Holland turned, his slitted eyes darkly gleaming before he seemed to shrug off whatever change he’d initiated in order to intimidate his newest employee. “I thought the man educated, not willfully ignorant.”

The trail of mildly irritated smoke escaping his nostrils made Silver think ‘dragon’ and, _Christ,_ that made sense for a man trusted to watch over the islands finances. Wolves, a unicorn, a dragon, a banshee, a fucking Popobawa, and a berserker looming on the horizon, not to mention whatever the hell Beauclerc, Muldoon and Joji were – she remembered them wincing when she’d blown the whistle too high for normal humans to hear. Silver shook her head at herself. If she’d wanted to escape her family’s legacy, she’d obviously landed on the wrong island for it.

Richard Guthrie made a point to gain her attention again as he brought the conversation back around. “What good does knowing any of that do?”

“Knowing _what_ he is tells me a great deal, Mister Guthrie,” Silver intoned.

His look then was haughty and disbelieving, “And what have you gleaned?”

Silver narrowed her eyes at the blatant challenge, ignoring the way Flint shifted in warning. “Popobawa are normally solitary and gain strength with age. The fact that he didn’t change when Vane attacked tells me he was likely only recently changed and had no idea of his actual abilities, which means there isn’t an older one running around that we haven’t found yet, who may have been teaching him. And, as they originate in Eastern Africa, its very likely our departed Captain Low embarked upon the Pirate Round before making his way to the West Indies for fresh victims. Which is good for us as that means he wasn’t sent here by any power in Europe to soften us up as a prelude to war.”

As that sucked the air right out of the room, Silver knew she’d hit on the subject all of them were dreading. It took only moments for everyone’s eyes to settle on Flint

The man took a deep breath before he started, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “It will likely start with three ships, maybe four. A tactical assault to retake the bay. Once England decides she wants this place back, the resources she will commit towards that end are inexhaustible. Sooner or later we’ll be driven inland, forced to fight as rebels from the interior, hoping to inflict enough damage and expense to compel the new governor to negotiate with what’s left of us.”

“England’s return isn’t inevitable. England has no more appetite for taking this place back to day than they did yesterday, or last month, or last year, because they know it is inhabited with too many men like me. Men who would die before being another man’s slave again.” Vane argued.

“But it is,” Flint kept looking at the table, refusing to meet anyone’s eye as he said, “Because I was the one the Sea Lords charged with taking back Nassau, and that was ten years ago. They’re coming, and the _Scarborough_ is just the scouting party.”

The group went silent at that. A ship like the _Scarborough_ being used as a scout was almost laughable; fast and sleek, the fifth-rate 32-gun ship was only outgunned by three-masts frigates and brigantines like the Spanish Man of War. And those that out-gunned her could not outmaneuver her. That they were using such a ship as a scout brought home the immense resources England could muster.

“For years, I prepared for that fight. Now it would appear that there is another way. A way in which we can control our futures without that fight, and,” Flint lifted his gaze and turned to Vane, who stiffened. “As fate would have it, you are holding the key to make that possible.”

“The girl,” Vane breathed.

Flint nodded, “Her father is a very powerful, very influential man. If I were to return her to him, unharmed, I believe that I can win him as an ally. An advocate in London, to argue for a reconciliation with England where we keep our assets, maintain control, and have a Governor of our own choosing.” At this he turned his gaze to Eleanor and his tone, while gruff, was nearly pleading “I believe there is an opportunity at hand, an opportunity where we control our own futures. We just all need to agree to take it.”

“Peter Ashe,” Eleanor blinked at him, proving that Vane had filled her in on just who they’d found in the _Fancy’s_ hold. “Returning his daughter might gain his ear, but there is no man in the Americas with a more strident contempt for piracy than he. No amount of appreciation is going to make him forget that.”

Flint nodded his agreement but lifted a hand when she might have continued. “A long time ago, he and I were friends. Good friends. We fought alongside each other towards this very end; a stable and prosperous Nassau.”

“You’re talking about a man who took a struggling Carolina colony and turned it into a commercial success,” Richard Guthrie leaned forward, his gaze intent and gleaming with avarice. “And from what I’m told by friends in London, he’s unparalleled in his ability to maneuver the powers in Parliament. If that man could be, persuaded as you say,” He glanced at his daughter with a raised brow, as though making a point. “If that man chose to be our advocate it will certainly argue well for our prospects.”

Silver wondered what they’d talked about that had Eleanor looking guilty for a moment before turning back to the subject at hand. Vane caught her look though, and like a predator sensing weakness, pounced.

“What do we get?” Vane nearly growled, leaning forward to catch Eleanor's eyes while indicating Flint and the other pirates spaced behind them. “A legitimate Nassau is all well and good for your Consortium and the Merchants and the plantations owners who make their money off the backs of their slaves; but what about the Brotherhood? What of the Account? What does this deal get us?” He turned to Flint as though sensing the man’s growing ire. “And don’t, for one second, attempt to geld me with dreams of legitimacy. There’s no legitimacy in piracy, there never was, even when they called it buccaneering.”

Silver sat back, pleasantly surprised. She knew there was a brain under there; he couldn’t have had a man like Rackham follow him if he didn’t know how to outsmart the notoriously devious and level-headed quartermaster occasionally. From the crooked grin on Rackham’s face, he was enjoying the reactions his captain garnered as well.

Even Flint observed him carefully before he sat back. “Is your freedom not enough?” Flint asked.

Vane lifted a lip at him. “I have freedom _now._ When I take something from a man; his ship, his money, his life, I don’t hide behind a clerc, I don’t hide behind the law, I don’t hide behind anything. I look him in his eye and I give him every chance to deny me. That is freedom.”

“Of a sort,” Flint nodded. “Would you like to keep it? Or would you rather be hunted to the ends of the earth, harried and dogged at every step by the very empire that could have granted it if you’d only taken the chance?”

Vane growled, “You trying to convince me to take their pardon, or yourself?”

“No,” Flint bit out. “To ask them for pardon is to admit we are at fault. But we would be fools if we didn’t show England that we don’t _need them,_ that they’ll have to deal with us either way, and make them deal with us in a way that leaves us better off than _running.”_

Vane subsided with a grumbled, “If you beg them to let you keep what is already yours, show them that weakness, you’ll invite the very outcome you wish to avoid.”

“It is a heady thing, what you attempt to do here,” Mister Scott started, interrupting the staring match between Flint and Vane. “But it is not without its drawbacks.”

Flint tipped his head as he turned to the man he essentially made Steward.

“A free and prosperous Nassau is not free for all,” Mister Scott intoned, his meaning obvious as he fingered the scars on his cheeks. “To bring the law and order of England to this island is to loose the free spirit of many of its people. I fear that it would divide this island in the most dangerous way; to force men to take sides against each other at a time when our very survival demands the opposite. I fear that if we go down that road, by the time Spain or England arrive, they will find their job done for them. They will find Nassau has destroyed itself. The world changes, it is inevitable. Perhaps the only thing that _is_ inevitable. If it were me facing this decision I would make peace with that. I would ensure we all live to see the sunrise again. Were it me.”

“We can teach them better,” Miranda Barlow interjected, her entreating gaze darting between Scott’s impassive look and Flint, who didn’t meet her eyes. “Teaching the men to look beyond the color of skin or-”

Scott's look was mildly pitying as he interrupted, “Forgive me for saying so, but you cannot be so ignorant as to assume I meant only black slaves will fight against this.”

“It is not ignorance to want to better yourself and the people around you. It is the opposite of it, in fact.” She argued, “We can educate them to know that _all_ are equal, despite their color or creed or sex.”

“They already know,” Scott said with a sad smile. “Why else would all men hate so?”

Just as Miranda Barlow's expression turned affronted, Vane leaned forward suddenly. “Why are you here?”

The Barlow woman jerked back, as if afraid Vane would bite, though she covered her instinctive flinch well. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re not a captain, not a merchant, you don’t represent the slave owners of the interior,” Vane stared without blinking in a way guaranteed to make someone nervous just that much more so. “You’re not here to argue to fine merits of uneducated men willing to tell themselves anything in order to justify the selling of human flesh. We all know you’re Flint’s woman, but that doesn’t give you reason to be in this room. So why are you here?”

To her credit, the Barlow woman didn’t quiver in fear, though it looked a near thing as she kept glancing at Flint’s impassive face. “Why are _you_ here, Captain Vane? You don’t occupy a Throne in this council-”

“I sit in consort with the man who does as his second,” Vane bit out. “What’s your excuse? And if you say its because you occupy his bed-”

Flint shifted forward, uncomfortable enough, and his damned loyalty prodded enough, that he caught Vane’s attention. “Leave be,” he said, his voice nearly hoarse with holding back.

And Vane stared at him for a long minute before he sighed out a breath and leaned back. Silver turned enough to meet Rackham’s eye, her lifted brows a match to his. That had been rather impressively well behaved for both of the men, despite the snipping between Vane and Barlow like a couple of dogs over a Flint-shaped bone. Rackham tilted his head before shrugging his shoulders, indicating he had no idea where that bit of responsibility had come from either. Silver snorted and sat back just as Richard Guthrie leaned forward again to garner the room’s attention after deeming the situation safe.

“What happens in London?” When Flint lifted a brow in question, Richard explained, “Assume your appeal to Lord Ashe is persuasive. Assume you bring him here to show him that everything necessary to make Nassau a viable, permanent colony is already in place and functioning. Then he has to make the case to Parliament, yes?”

Flint tipped his head, “Yes.”

“But while he’s trying to persuade them that there are reasonable men among the pirates of Nassau, men ready to govern themselves peacefully, no one will be listening because in next room the Ambassador of the Court to King Philip of Spain will be shaking his fist with rage, screaming about how these same reasonable men just stole five million dollars from the King’s treasury-” Vane, Rackham and even Billy scoffed at that and Richard waited until they quieted before continuing in a slightly louder tone as though to preempt their objections. “He’ll be demanding Whitehall denounce the act or risk losing the hard won peace between both nations.”

Flint lifted a hand and the pirates on his side of the table went quiet in a heartening show of support. “What about it?”

“If Lord Ashe is to have any prayer in succeeding at what you are asking of him, not only can you not retrieve the _Urca_ gold,” Richard lifted his chin and glared down his nose at Vane. “No one else here can retrieve it either.”

Flint shook his head as he straightened in his chair. “They saw it with their own eyes. In their minds half of it is spent already. To persuade them to let it go at this point is an impossibility.”

“I don’t dispute that,” Richard lifted his hands and balanced them on the table as though holding a scale. “But I would argue that it is indisputable that these two plans; courting Lord Ashe and retrieving the gold, are working against each other. Perhaps even mutually exclude each other.”

Flint turned his head until he met Silver’s gaze. “I will make it work.”

“How could you possibly?” Richard scoffed.

Silver lifted a brow, wondering that herself.

Flint bared his teeth at her. “I don’t know. Yet.”

* * *

It came down to the crews and whether or not they would be willing to give up the gold for a future. As most of the men on the beaches had no thought beyond their next meal, it was an argument that would take a lot of energy and well into the afternoon before the crews would be ready to vote. And as Flint had put the issue before the Council of Nassau, it seemed it was a matter the entire Island would need to vote on they made plans to consult their groups and convene that evening again, which would hopefully allow Flint to take the _Revenge_ to Charles Town the next morning.

Silver watched as Vane, Rackham and Billy left to rally the crews and let the Captain’s know there would be a meeting and most likely a vote tonight. The issue of the _Urca_ gold was likely to be the sticking point for most, if not all, the men. She wondered how she was going to convince a town of pirates and thieves that their best bet for the future of this seaside shanty town would be to leave the gold where it was for now – at least until Silver figured out a way to take it off that beach without the Spanish knowing about it. Or the men opening their mouths and telling everyone they came into contact with where the bags of gold they would no doubt be selling came from.

While she contemplated that impossible task, she felt Anne Bonny come up beside her and lean against the pillar in the shadow of the front doors.

“You should not go to Charles Town,” Bonny muttered in a low tone.

“Pardon?” Silver tipped her head as she glanced at the woman out of the corner of her eye.

Bonny grimaced but straightened her shoulders and repeated, “You should not go to Charles Town.”

Normally, Silver would scoff at anyone telling her what she should or shouldn’t do in that ominous tone, but Bonny was _bean sidhe,_ banshee. Which meant when she gave warning in that low, scream-sore intonation, it wasn’t something Silver was willing to ignore.

“You see my death?” Silver asked, knowing Bonny might not deign to answer such a direct question.  
Bonny shook her head.

So it wasn’t a specific warning to Silver personally. “You see Flint’s death?”

She shook her head again.

“Billy’s? Vane’s?”

“No,” Bonny bit out, frustrated.

Silver turned to face Bonny directly, watching with an inner smile as Bonny straightened like she was about to get confronted or told outright to fuck off as she no doubt had been many times.

“Have you told this to Rackham?” Bonny rolled her eyes so Silver assumed that meant _no._ “What is it you feel then?”

Bonny lifted her chin to look her in the eye. “You believe me?”

Silver lifted a brow, “I’m not about to discount the warning of a banshee, but if you can’t give me anything specific, I’m not sure what you’d like me to use to convince the others of the fruitlessness of a course they all seem pretty set upon.”

Bonny grimaced again, “A course set upon by the Barlow woman, you mean.”

“I see you’re not a fan, either,” Silver smirked behind a hand, eyeing the couple standing in the entrance of Guthrie’s. “Anything specific about her perhaps?”

And there. Just for a second and if she hadn’t been looking for it she might not have seen the flash of white cover Bonny’s eyes.

The one and only time Silver had come into contact with a banshee was when she was six years old. Her mother had taken her on a trip to the Côte d'Azur in the winter. They’d been in the market gathering produce for the evening meal in a basket when a white haired woman had gripped her mother’s arm and said in a voice like a screaming nightmare with eyes of death-blinded white that she would die before the New Moon.

Her mother had dropped their basket, cracking several of a dozen eggs to leak all over the cut of lamb they’d just paid for. The next day, in the long carriage ride back to the Pyrénées of southern France, her mother explained what the woman was, and why she should always heed the warning of a creature so in touch with death. Two weeks later her mother was dead.

Silver never forgot the way the woman’s eyes seemed to see through her, to what lies beyond, or what it meant when a banshee’s eyes turned white.

Miranda Barlow was going to die. And soon.

Silver turned and looked at Flint and the Barlow woman standing in the doorway. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but Flint looked almost confused and tentatively pleased while the woman looked determined as she seemingly convinced him of something. Before she knew what she would do, Silver found herself approaching her Captain and nearly sliding between the pair, only just halting a few feet away to clear her throat and Flint’s attention to herself. She still wasn’t sure whether she would pass on the warning or not.

The look Flint gave her made Silver wonder what expression must be on her face, but she shrugged it off and gestured to the street. “If you want to get ahead of the rumors, I suggest we make our way to the beach.”

Flint nodded and glanced back at Miranda. The woman gave him a speaking look before her gaze brushed over Silver dismissively. That time, she did bare her teeth at the woman before turning to follow Flint onto the street. Warning be damned.


	7. XV.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So. This happened.

_**1715 – Nassau, New Providence Island** _

The situation on the beach wasn’t ideal. Vane had called for the Brotherhood and then fucked off – presumably to actually fuck Eleanor, _finally,_ but that was neither here nor there as he couldn’t be _found_ – Rackham and Billy were doing their best to sway the crews into thinking that the gold would still be theirs – they just had to wait a while longer – all while trying to corral the men into keeping their mouths shut so that some enterprising (backstabbing, traitorous, thief) of a captain didn’t go steal it out from under their noses. The Brethren Court had assembled, appropriately concerned about the treasure and the welfare of Nassau equally. They’d nodded to Flint and expressed their reservations about his plan to garner support from Charles Town. They’d sat on benches and chairs and wooden boards set on half-barrels as Captain Naft called the other captains to order by means of being the oldest pirate on the island, having sailed with Hornigold once upon a time, and by having the largest ship, the _Intrepid._

And then he promptly called for food and drink.

It was a break that lasted two hours, long enough for the sun to begin to descend and for Silver to get the feel of the crowd and the issue at hand. The Brotherhood agreed to decide for or against Flint by nightfall – in roughly four more hours – but no one was fooled. It was a blatant attempt to buy time and accrue the acquired votes to deny Flint the chance to peacefully free Nassau from the encroaching war with England.

Silver was preoccupied with gauging the temperaments of the men, reassuring those who’d already spent a fair bit of promised coin for services already rendered, and obtaining the support of a few wavering captains – their support, not their promised vote. A good portion of the Captains – a concerning more than half – were in favor of waiting until they could get the feel of the crews before they threw their weight behind a decision.

Cowards, the lot of them.

Not that Silver could claim much better. She’d kept her tongue all throughout that morning meeting because the last thing Flint needed was _her_ telling him his idea was a fool’s dream at best and a slow suicide at worst. She actually agreed with Vane on this issue; they were free here because they weren’t bogged down by the laws that dictated polite society. Which wasn’t to say they hadn’t any rules – the law of the jungle ruled supreme in lawless towns like Nassau – but none that would see a man hanged for taking something from another simply because he was the stronger. More often than not, the rules that governed pirates and their ilk were more strict in some ways; you couldn’t just insult a man because you didn’t like the way he was brought up, or who his parents were, or where he was educated, not when that man could skewer you where you stood for offering the insult. When men bumped into each other in the street, they apologized unless one was drunk or stupid, and then he learned better. Despite its lawlessness, it was a much more polite society, for all that it was a bloody one. There was none of the snobbish cutting one learned to endure in polite society here; here a man rose to power based on his strength and merits and the willingness of those who followed him, not his stature.

There was a freedom in that which Silver admired and even craved. The polite society that the Guthrie’s and even the Barlow woman seemed to crave would be shackles to most of the men here. And she was in no hurry to help bring it back.

Nor was she willing to cross Flint if that was his ultimate goal; she’d seen what happened to those that stood against him. Should it come to that, she was perfectly willing to run a little further to escape the reach of her family and the refined brutality that civilization would bring. Of course, to do so would require the gold Flint had promised.

But that decision was a ways off yet.

At the moment she had a bunch of unruly captains to placate. Every Captain looked thoughtful as she spoke to them. There had been discussions. There had been debates. Silver had to fight to keep from bashing her head into a solid surface.

All the while she had spent sitting on her arse, listening to the discussions going on around her, the Captains had changed their minds a dozen times in the last hour. Silver knew damn well what they were really discussing. She even knew which Captain was likely to vote for what. She knew that Naft and Lawrence, two of Guthrie’s Consortium Captains, were all for reuniting with England as they already had their ships set up to begin the Caribbean arm of Guthrie’s Trading Company, and if it succeeded, it would make them wealthy, powerful men. She knew Vane was actually against it, though he wasn’t so stupid as to oppose Flint directly. And quite a few Captains of the nineteen present on the island seemed to be waiting for Vane to decide one way or the other to vocally _oppose_ Flint instead of quietly supporting him.

Somehow, though, that situation hadn’t even arisen. There had been a spectacular and surprising lack of clamoring for the vote for the Throne.

Silver glanced at Rackham and wondered at Vane’s absence again. Was he clever enough to circumvent that situation completely? And whether or not the Throne was secure, there was still the issue of the gold and how many men Flint would lose the support of should he forego retrieving it. If this entire debacle wasn’t an underhanded attempt on the parts of the other captains aware that Flint had returned without the _Urca_ gold, but with a Spanish warship and the knowledge of where the treasure lay, to somehow glean that invaluable information from the men of Flint’s desperately hungry and horny crew, Silver was a fairy princess.

She couldn’t even accuse Naft of setting the whole thing up, as he was most vocally opposed to bringing the gold and the wrath of Spain to Nassau. No, of all people, Flint had caused this problem by refusing to simply ransom the Ashe girl back to her father.

The honorable bastard.

“My priority has always been and will always be the welfare of my men,” Flint had replied when asked why he put this question to the men.

Silver couldn’t even laugh at that, though she’d wanted to. Oh yes, Flint was violent, merciless when opposed, and she could believe Billy when he said that Flint wanted to make himself King above all the pirate princes of Nassau, but he wasn’t needlessly cruel. He was an effective and fearsome Captain for near on a decade, having survived as an outlaw in a place where the weak and the dead are one and the same. A learned man who had a way with words and a conviction deep enough to convince even those who would normally be against Flint that his ideas are sound despite reservations.

And in spite of all this, if the men voted now, Flint would win only by a margin of six.

Silver sought out Flint on the porch of his bungalow. “You seem unconcerned,” She nearly huffed. “If I understand correctly the stakes of the upcoming vote are significant. What exactly are you doing?”

“I’m seeming unconcerned,” Flint leaned back in his chair to survey the beach with his sea-glass eyes. “I cannot think of a better way to aid Captain Naft’s cause than to appear panicked about it.”

“No, that would be my job, I suppose,” Silver crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall.

Flint smirked at her and Silver marveled at the facets of the man she’d been privy to.

Openly affectionate behind closed doors with those he trusted, he would speak his mind and even ramble on occasion. But in front of others, in Nassau or in front of his crew, he spoke carefully and with great thought and hardly ever out of line of the expectations of those around him. But that didn’t make him predictable. On the contrary, Captain Flint was like the sea with deep currents of emotion driving him, still until he moved, navigable when calm, fearsome and awe-inspiring when enraged. One learned to brace themselves for any stray wave when in his presence, hunker down during a storm, and bask in the power when used to their advantage. And in the course of their two-month acquaintance, Silver had seen underneath the mask that was Flint to the man, James. She could read him like seasoned sailors read the ocean they made their home, a man so fearsome that men whispered about him, afraid even the mention of his name would rouse his ire. A man so assured of his power that even covered in the blood of his murdered crewmate he expected their compliance. It was how a wolf behaved when among prey.

Only one thing so far baffled her. “What did you and Miranda Barlow speak of?”

Flint stiffened, his shoulder tightening as he turned so that he could see her out of the corner of his eye. “When?”

“This morning, after the meeting,” Silver clarified, easily understanding why he wouldn’t want to discuss any mention of the woman’s husband and his love for the other man. She watched his shoulders drop in relief and knew she’d supposed correctly.

“She wants to join us for the time being,” Flint explained, waving a hand as though he wasn’t announcing something that would be anathema to most of the men on his crew. “Abigail doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know Eleanor. But there’s a good chance she’ll recognize Miranda, and our plan would work best if she was cooperative.”

Silver refrained from snorting or directly contradicting whatever it was the woman had said to gain Flint’s approval. That girl was a wolf deep in her instincts in a bid to survive the trauma done to her by Ned Low and his men. She wouldn’t trust easy. She certainly wouldn’t trust if she sniffed even a hint of deceit, and the Barlow woman practically dripped of it.

“For how long?” she asked, wondering if she would have to begin factoring Missus Barlow’s wants and needs into the daily regimen of conversations she didn’t want to have but were necessary with Billy and the crew.

“Not long,” Flint hedged, sounding unsure himself. “Perhaps just until we secure Peter Ashe’s partnership.”

Which could take weeks to months if not years should any problems arise during negotiations. Silver resigned herself to possibly managing yet another forceful personality. “I’ll deal with the fallout from the crew, shall I?”

Flint’s face took on a considering cast. “You think there will be problems because she’s a woman?” The look she gave him then must have been just shy of disparaging because he held up his hands as though surrendering.

“I think there will be a problem because of her reputation as the witch who controls you,” she muttered. At his frown she sighed, “I’ll have it well in hand by the time we leave, don’t worry.”

“You would know the reactions of the crew to a woman being on board better than I would,” his gaze then turned considering as he looked at her.

“What?” Silver asked, tipped her head to the side as she tried to catch whatever thought had just occurred to him.

“You know the crew better than I do,” Flint stated as though just realizing this. “You’ve been here less than three months.”

Silver refrained from rolling her eyes, but only just. “I believe it’s called _conversation.”_

“You shit,” he chuckled good naturedly before his gaze turned to the crowd on the beach. “What were the numbers at the last count?”

“I say you have at least a half dozen votes over at the moment.” Silver relayed to him that information to a stunning lack of reaction.

Flint sighed after a long moment of thinking. “I need to win so convincingly that no sane man would oppose this plan for Nassau. A margin of twenty would help matters. Don’t stop moving until you have it,” Flint flicked his eyes at her.

Silver nearly left at the clear dismissal, but what better time to allay her own fears with him than when he was in a mood to discuss them? She hesitated only a moment before turning back. “There is one particular vote I’m having some trouble with. Perhaps you could help me with it.”

“Who’s vote is that?” Flint heaved a put-upon sigh, his eyes still tracking the movement on the beach.

“Mine,” she then had the privilege of gaining his complete attention as he jerked around to face her fully. The look on his face was one of bafflement and Silver could understand why; since the moment after rendering them unconscious in the wrecks, when they made their bargain in Hornigold’s Fort, she’d been with him. “When we returned you said it would be a week, maybe two before Spanish reinforcements arrived and that gold was as good as gone.”

“Yes,” Flint agreed, waiting for her to elaborate.

“So what happens if we win the vote and the girl isn’t delivered in a timely fashion? Lord Ashe doesn’t agree immediately to be our advocate, delays to achieve revenge for the abuse his daughter no doubt suffered at Captain Low’s hands. Certainly these are plausible outcomes. How long do we wait for the situation to resolve itself?” Silver explained, watching as understanding washed over his features.

“The gold is still a priority. There’s been no change in that,” Flint assured in calm tones. “You have my word.”

Silver stared at him for along moment wondering what made him think her naïve enough to believe that wholly and without explanation, as though Silver hadn’t watched him for the past few weeks and been aware of every instance in which he’d pledged his word only to break it whenever he felt it necessary with little to no apology. It hurt; the realization that he either didn’t entirely trust her or know her well enough by now to notice that she was smarter than that. To Silver, regardless of all she’d given and done for him – in defiance of what she was coming to feel for this man – it was a slap in the face to comprehend how little he must value her in turn.

It felt like hearing her grandmother order her whipped and displayed in the stocks.

Nearly a month had gone by before she’d been healthy enough to run from that. She’d made it to England before some of her mother’s hunters had caught up to her in London. That day saw her become what her grandmother didn’t know to fear as a total solar eclipse darken southern England, Sweden and Finland*. She’d run to the ends of the world to escape her family; she’s not sure what she’d have to do to escape Flint if he didn’t let her go.

At the moment, she wasn’t sure what to do with this man, didn’t know how to smile and sit under his assessing gaze while he talked to her like he was holding back a growl, and snarled like a man unused to trusting _anyone_ let alone a girl who thought she’d been obvious in throwing herself to stand at his side. He was a wolf who’d let close a girl who’d been treating him like a dog. Only after she was sure she’d gained his trust he’d shown his teeth and now Silver wasn’t inclined to trust herself if she’d read him this wrong. He made her doubt herself, and that was something she didn’t know if she could forgive.

“That’s all I needed to hear,” Silver smiled woodenly. Her face must have been something far from reassuring and she watched almost dispassionately as Flint nearly flinched and jerked forward, one hand outstretched as is if to comfort, or stop her. She didn’t respond beyond standing and skirting out of his reach. “I should get to work. Keep you apprised of the numbers.”

“Silver,” Flint started.

But she was already on the sand and striding away as fast as her legs would allow without actually running. She didn’t think, couldn’t, not when every instinct in her body was urging her to run as fast and as far as she could. She was halfway to Max’s before Muldoon caught up with her.

“Mister Silver, a moment?” Muldoon asked politely but in a tone that indicated he wasn’t really asking.

Silver didn’t slow, but she did glance at him and suck back everything disparaging that wanted to come out of her moth. “How can I help?”

“You’re doing a nose count for the Captain, yes?”

She swallowed her anger at the assumption that she was already always on Flint’s side, “I am.”

“You’re gonna find your tally a few men short,” Muldoon offered.

“Why?” Silver stopped then, hearing the tone of concern in the powder-man’s gruff voice. “Who isn’t here?”

* * *

“Where is he?” Silver asked as she walked through the bursar’s door searching for Dufresne.

The old dragon looked up, an amused gleam in his eye. “You know, I wasn’t sure when we first meet, but I am now. You’re a Spark.”

Silver froze at the low tone, her penetrating gaze darting around his small but cluttered office, looking for anyone who would have overheard as she tried to figure out how she’d given herself away. “Pardon?”

“Oh, don’t worry none, girl,” Something on her face must have given away her panic, because he waved a hand. “I’m not one to cause trouble.”

Silver snorted, “Only profit from it.” Then she froze again, afraid he'd take insult.

But Mister Holland only threw back his head and laughed. “True enough,” he agreed. “True enough. The wealth of Nassau is my wealth.”

“Your hoard, you mean?” She asked tentatively, beginning to relax a little.

“Not all dragons collect gold,” Holland chided. “I once knew and old formel who collected buttons. She’d slice one right off a shirtfront if she fancied it.”

Silver blinked at him. He hadn’t been this talkative when she’d come in to claim Noonan’s holding’s. “What do you collect then?”

“Profit and favors,” he answered, that amused gleam in his eyes again.

In retrospect that… made sense. “That’s why you didn’t fuss over the deeds.”

“Yes,” he nodded, turning and gesturing to his inner office, a small cluttered room filled with bookcases nearly overflowing with ledgers, some slim, some rather fat and stuffed with odd shaped papers and kept closed with leather ties. “It was sound business letting you take over those holdings. I know you’ll protect them fiercely, maybe finally make a worthy contribution to the continued survival of this backwater hamlet.”

“Profit,” Silver murmured, thinking over the concept of collecting something so nebulous when it didn’t translate directly to gold.

“Exactly,” he smiled at her, his pupils slitting and the wrinkles on his face taking on reptilian lines. “Profit shared is profit gathered. Wealth is not necessarily counted in coin, but prosperity. And despite what life has taught those thieving pups, no man is an island.”

Silver lifted a brow at him, “You approve of the wolves?”

He snorted, “Approve or not, they _are,_ girl. But I do approve of the calm you’ve brought them.”

“I’m not some tamer of wolves,” She grimaced. “I didn’t come here for this.”

“No,” he murmured, that amused gleam widening until he looked almost manic. “You came here to escape yourself and find a family.”

She stilled, “I think you have that backwards.”

“Do I?” he murmured, his voice taking on a treble rumble. “Do you know dragons were among the first magic in this world?”

She nodded, her skin tightening at the strange tone.

“We taught early humans how to See, to Read and finally to Write,” As he spoke in that eerie treble, she heard more than just his words. She heard an entire other story being told under the one happening aloud. ‘ _We dragons gave magic to man. Made them magic themselves_.’ “We were the first skin changers.” ‘ _Our blood gave those warriors who killed us power at a terrible cost_.’ “And to help control those that came after us,” ‘ _Berserker, turn-skins, and changelings became breeds outcast from their own society,_ ’ “We willing gave knowledge to a trusted few,” ‘ _A young boy rescued and healed an elder. In repayment We taught him the Ways, gave him an inherent ability to pass to his children should they show the same tendencies._ ’ “Emissaries who kept the trust and taught those willing to keep the balance,” ‘ _Sparks are the only true balance, and blood seeks blood, stolen to given,_ ’ “They have a responsibility to those who are other, to guide and teach,” ‘ _It is a sacred pact proven by your ability to calm those who look to you for guidance; it gives you power over them, but only so long as you don’t abuse it. Your blood won’t let you otherwise._ ’

Silver waited until the ringing in her ears stopped before she met his gaze. She thought it would be sympathetic, maybe even pitying. But his reptilian eyes held nothing but a soft amusement, and that oddly bolstered her. “How do you know?”

He opened his mouth then, and what came out wasn’t any speech recognizable to the human ear, but a soft symphony of hissing clicks that was oddly musical as it reverberated in more than just her ears. “ _Because a born wolf finds freedom under your protection, a feral wolf dips his gaze to you, a bitten one looks to you for comfort, Our emissary bends his will to yours and a student is brought to him in recompense, because a unicorn willingly put his head and horn in your hands, and a Strong One measures his worth by what he sees in your eyes. Because you hear and understand our tongue and only those we call Brother and Sister can do what you do without thought, effortlessly taming those who are descended from ones who stole Our blood, whether or not that is what you mean to do._ ”

Silver stared at him, at his gentle amusement as he seemed to admonish and chide as though she was a child. And to be fair, in his eyes, she might as well be in swaddling. “Do I have a choice?”

“There is always choice, little sister,” he chuckled. “The question isn’t _if_ you can, the question is always _do you wish to?_ ”

Silver blinked at him before her mouth slipped into a self-deprecating smirk as she thought back to her conversation with Flint earlier, “Not sure how long I’ll be _able_ to.”

He shrugged, his pupils rounding and face smithing, as if it was no matter and turned back to the ledger on his desk. “Who were you asking after when you came in?”

It was almost alarming how he could switch from wise old dragon too nosy for his own good to busy city bursar who didn’t care a whit for any problems but his own. And then she remembered why she’d come in the first place and cursed before asking, “Where the hell is Dufresne?”

* * *

Max’s skin paled as she slumped into the seat behind the small desk she’d appropriated from Noonan’s office downstairs. She was clean and significantly better dressed than she'd been the night before. “I had thought them only rumors.”

Silver wanted to snarl. “But you’ve heard this before?”

“Only in the last week or so,” Max placated, glancing up as though she heard the anger in Silver’s voice. “And it was a rumor I had not the time to corroborate yet being as I was not in house, or I would have told you immediately.”

Silver huffed and turned, crossing her arms as she looked out the door and down into the open room of the brothel. “So what do we know for fact?”

“The _Scarborough_ has been seen frequently using Harbor Island since word of Mister Guthrie’s arrest warrant,” she lifted a finger as she listed each rumor and fact they knew. “There have been sightings of soldiers billeted on the beach less than fifty miles from New Providence. The plantation owners have been making noise about Eleanor’s new Consortium because it means a profitable Nassau without an English yolk and many of them still have loans to repay in London. New faces come and go so frequently that slipping a few soldiers in wearing local clothing would hardly be difficult and it is not hard to imagine they are getting help from those very same plantation owners who would happily return to British rule. So do I believe that the Captain of the _Scarborough_ would offer a pardon to any pirate willing to turn over some of him brethren? Yes. And that you heard it from Mister Holland makes me think it fact and not just rumor.”

Silver sucked in a deep breath before letting it back out. “We’re so fucked,” she hissed. “He knows where the _Urca_ gold is. If he uses that as a bargaining tool…” she didn’t continue. Knowing without even explaining that it would mean the loss of Nassau’s financial stability before it even had a chance to find its feet.

“You said he was approached,” Max hummed as she tapped a fingertip to her lips in an unconsciously sensual gesture. “Do you think he went with them already?”

“He may have,” Silver allowed. “If he thought Flint was going to win the vote tonight. But he’s perpetually unable to see Flint as anything other than a villain and cannot understand how anyone sees differently, so he may just be laying low until the vote occurs. What bothers me more is not the fact that Dufresne can betray his brothers so easily, but that the Captain of the _Scarborough_ knew enough of the goings on aboard the _Walrus_ to know that Dufresne would be a willing turncoat.”

Max blinked at that. “You have a spy among your men.”

“That was my fear,” Silver nodded before kicking a towel. _“Shit.”_

“The men are afraid of Flint,” Max started, tipping her head as she thought things through. “They are beginning to trust you, but they are loyal to Billy.”

Silver stopped as she thought that over. “You think Billy might know who it is?”

“He may be able to point you in the right direction, in any case,” Max nodded before she stood. “Send those he thinks merit the look to me.”

“Flint forbade the men from coming here for good reasons, Max,” Silver started.

“Yes, because he knows that secrets spill from men’s heads when they are pleasured well.” Max held up her hand in a placating gesture, “But those secrets will go to you, so where is the conflict?”

“Flint doesn’t know I own the brothel,” Silver hedged.

Max’s smile widened, “Does he need to?”

Silver blinked before chuckling. “All right,” she nodded, liking the idea of getting one over the bull-headed Captain. “But I’m telling Billy.”

“I will be surprised if he does not already suspect,” Max allowed with a smile. “He did find you naked in my bed this morning.”

“You’d be surprised what that man misses.” Silver rolled her eyes, “About this morning-”

“No need to fret,” Max lifted her hand and patted Silver’s cheek. “If you do not wish for me to care for you as a lover, then I will care for you as a sister and think myself all the more blessed for family I can trust.”

“If you make me cry I might have to spank you,” Silver turned her head and kissed Max’s palm before looking out the window, furiously blinking away the tears that threatened. “As your older sister, of course.”

Max’s laughter then was tinkling music to her ears.

* * *

“So this is where you’ve been hiding. Naughty.”

Jack Rackham sidled up next to her just as she stepped outside the brothel, sword and pistol half hidden by his flamboyant blue coat covered with gleaming brass buttons. He wasn’t alone. Anne Bonny slid up to her other side, the lapel of her long coat tucked behind the hilts of her twin blades. Bonny’s hat was pulled low over her brow and Rackham’s eyes were hidden behind his ridiculous shaded spectacles, but appearances were deceiving; both were in full suit, pistols in belts and hands on their weapons as though ready to jump into the vanguard.

“I haven’t been hiding,” Silver explained. “I’ve been busy running errands. This was only the latest bout of gathering intel.”

Bonny’s brow furrowed thoughtfully.

“You’ve heard the rumors, then.” Rackham said, glancing at Bonny. Silver nodded. He twisted to glance at the beach before turning a flinty stare at Silver. “Maybe you can convince Charles that leaving now to recruit men willing to fight is a fruitless endeavor.”

Silver stopped. “He’s leaving? Now?”

“He’s asked for a skiff to be readied for him.” Rackham grimaced, “The stupid idiot.”

“He’s stubborn, not stupid.” Bonny murmured in her raspy voice.

“I think he’s particularly stupid about being stubborn,” Rackham reiterated, then explained when he noticed Silver’s glare. “His lady-love didn’t particularly agree with the way Charles disagreed with her and Flint’s vision for our fair free city.”

Silver tipped her head back and closed her eyes in exasperation. “Did they at least fuck it out before Vane decided to leave?”

“Usually the pair of them are a fair bit more relaxed when they’ve worked out their mutual frustrations,” Rackham said, the grin he wore a touch uncertain.

“So that’s a no?”

Neither Bonny or Rackham spoke. A crewman came up the beach toward them, hauling what looked like barrels from the _Fancy_ toward the warehouse the Guthrie’s used to accept stolen goods. Silver moved out of the way. Rackham and Bonny followed.

“I don’t really care if the captain gets his dick wet or not,” Bonny groused. “It’s not why we hunted you down.”

“Our fearsome leader is in a strop,” Rackham announced. “We’ve come to fetch you. He’s always so much more amendable when you’re present.”

Silver made an irritable sound – more because she’d seemingly had this argument twice already and didn’t want to go for a third round than because she suspected that Rackham and Bonny had used any excuse to get out of the meeting – and gestured for them to lead the way.

Bonny shook her head. “Not me, I’m done with those cocks. I’m gonna eat and sleep. You watch yourself, yeah? He looked fit to start shooting when we left.”

“You’re leaving me?” Rackham whinged. “No, worse, you’re not coming back with me? Flint might hunt you down after for abandoning ship. After he finished skewering me for allowing the insult.”

Bonny punched his shoulder before striding off.

“There goes my dearest Anne, my autumn flower… somewhat less attractive now that she’s turned her back and left her one true love to fend for himself-”

“Fuck off, Jack!” She yelled without slowing.

With a brow raised, Silver turned to look at Rackham, who looked pained. “Oh all right. I’ll throw myself on the proverbial fire, shall I? But don’t think I won’t remember this, you ungrateful hussy!” He called after Bonny. She made a rude gesture over her shoulder. Rackham sighed with a lovelorn smile and tipped his head toward the beach.

As they walked down the main thoroughfare without talking, Silver realized exactly how much time had passed since her last conversation with Flint. That had been early afternoon; now it was nightfall. lanterns were being lit and the cook fires were beginning to burn low. The smell of tomorrow’s bread baking in the tavern pervaded the street, making a few hungry stragglers wander from vendor to vendor to see what fare was still on offer. The water in the bay glimmered darkly as a small skiff and a pair of sailors made their way to shore.

Silver didn’t recognize the two men climbing onto the jetty until she stepped off the packed dirt of the main street onto the churning sand.

“What the fuck?” She muttered, aware of Rackham continuing on a few strides before he realized that she wasn’t following.

* * *

Neither silver nor Rackham spoke as they crossed the beach through scattered groups of men chattering away about which would vote for who. But their purposeful stride brought it’s own kind of attention, as silence and a crowd gathered in their wake.

The meeting room for the Brethren Court wasn’t the hall in the Mayor’s House, nor was it the enclosed rooms above the tavern built for just that purpose. It was a repurposed warehouse at the edge of the beach emptied of its wares and packed to the edges of the open space with the bodies of those crew willing to stand like sardines to hear the Captains debate the merits of one plan over another.

Compared to the rough décor of wooden chairs and carved pillars in the tavern, the warehouse was raw planks and thick cut beams with half barrels used as seats and not a table in sight. This wasn’t a place for chatting politely over tea. The blood stains on the raw wood floor could attest to that. Over the last decade, this meeting hall had seen its fair share of arguments, agreements, fights to the death and compacts to consort. There were no window panes – glass was too easy to break in an all out fight – and no doors. Sections of the walls had been completely removed to allow those standing outside to hear the debates that took place on the center floor.

It was a testament to the fact that men could argue and still band together to make one of the world’s first truly free colonies in the New World.

Silver would never think of it as a landmark, and there were signs that it might one day slide back into the sea, but it deserved the hushed atmosphere of the men inside because it might one day be the staging area for a war with the biggest nation in the world. While the pirates had managed to keep their fear of the coming fight on the very fringe of their minds, the Empire had yet to bring the full force of their Navy to bear.

She wondered if that day was coming faster than Flint believed.

As she and Rackham entered the hall, a heated argument was well underway between Captain Lawrence of the Consortium and a crewman from Naft’s _Intrepid._ Captain Naft was himself seated upon a trunk shoved against the wall, a resigned look upon his aged face. Half the Captains were shifting subtly away from the pair. Silver didn’t know what they were arguing about – with pirates it could be anything from how loud someone chewed their food to a disagreement in how to properly split the spoils, nevermind that the treasure had yet to be brought in, and when/if it was it wouldn’t be brought in by either of those crews – and she didn’t care, not when she noted Flint pacing the room, his jaw set, his gaze murderous.

This was more than a mere strop.

Rackham went to take his seat. It was Vane’s spot in the small arrangement of boxes and half barrels that passed for seats in the hall. They were arranged in an uneven circle around the center floor, with the crews of each ship ranged out behind them. Flint noticed Rackham take his seat, frowned when he didn’t observe Anne Bonny behind him and turned until he spotted Silver on the other side of the room.

Rather than shouting like he obviously wanted to, he mouthed, ‘ _Where the fuck have you been?_ ’

Silver waved her hand in a ‘been busy’ gesture. Flint’s eyes narrowed and he made a sharp, cutting gesture before nearly clawing his way between the two arguing men and glaring down anyone protesting until even those chattering in the back withered into silence.

“Will someone bring Silver up to date?”

Silver lifted a brow at the tone. She was already angry with the way he’d dismissed her concerns this afternoon, she didn’t need to stand around and listen to him get pissy because she hadn’t been on hand to hear the latest gossip.

A pirate captain by the name of Tom Foley, who Silver only knew because he made a habit of opposing Flint on principle, leaned forward so that he could smirk at her. “Well, if your darling catamite didn’t spend so much of his time in the brothel-”

Silver didn’t realize she’d moved until she kicked the crate out from under him. By the time Foley knew what happened, Silver was gripping him by the neck and riding his shoulders to the floor until his face smacked the wood floor hard. His fingers scrambled for leverage; his knees tried to push up under him. She didn’t let him have the time to try for his weapons before she had the blade of her knife tucked under his chin against his vulnerable throat. He froze.

“I’m sorry, I must have heard wrong,” Silver said in a calm voice as she sliced just enough to know he felt the burn of skin parting under her blade. _“What_ did you call me?”

“Is that really necessary?” Flint asked in a dry tone. “I don’t have the patience to clean up another bloody mess.”

“Our newest guest doesn’t wish to return to the loving arms of her father in Carolina,” Rackham said helpfully, smiling toothily at the man under Silver’s knees. “Our bargaining chip for reconciliation just turned into an anchor.”

“So we ransom her,” Captain Lawrence argued. “Then it won’t be our fault when the spoiled chit runs away from home the next day.”

The crewman from the _Intrepid_ frowned. “Leave the girl be, we still have the _Urca_ gold-”

Silver ignored the rest of the argument, understanding that this was what the yelling earlier had been about. She turned to look at Flint, wondering where this left them. He was staring at the floor, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes. She stood, stepping off Foley by kicking the side of his face, and walked over to her Captain.

“This is hardly a problem,” Silver started.

“No,” Flint agreed, speaking over her. “I’m sure Missus Barlow will convince the girl to go back to her father’s soon enough. And even if she doesn’t, she can play along long enough to reach her majority in a few years and then decide for herself.”

Silver blinked and took that in. He was still determined to the reconciliation plan? Despite the opportunity to retrieve the gold, free and clear? “But the _Urca-?”_

“The gold will still be there when we leave Charles Town in a few days,” Flint reassured, raising his brows.

Silver saw frustration in his gaze and wondered at it. If his plans were still in place then what did he have to be frustrated about beyond the fact that the Captains and crew were still arguing over it. They had the advantage of ships; Charles was off finding more men, Rackham had the _Fancy,_ Flint the _Revenge._ If they had two objectives, they could achieve both plans.

She opened her mouth to say just that when she realized who was standing behind Flint’s ‘chair’. Dufresne.

“Ah,” Silver met Flint’s gaze. “I gather we have other problems.”

“State the obvious, shall we?” Flint’s nod was short and sharp.

Silver glanced around the room again, watching as Foley took his seat, smiling as though to say she didn’t frighten him despite the faint tremble of his hand on the hilt of his sword. She noted that Billy was uncharacteristically absent. “Is Billy taking care of it this time?” She alluded to the first time they all agreed that Dufresne was a problem.

He nodded again before coming toe to toe with her and quietly asking, “Where the fuck have you been?”

It was then Silver made a snap decision, for good or ill. “Launch landed a little while ago. The news it brings is of the utmost importance.”

“More important than losing our ship?” Flint growled at her.

“Yes,” Silver pointedly looked to the entrance where Vincent and Nicholas stood as unobtrusively as possible.

Flint followed her gaze and when he recognized the two men, his pupils constricted in a rage. “They’re supposed to be watching over the gold. What the fuck are they doing back?”

“Because there’s no longer any gold to watch over.” Silver murmured, not quite quiet enough. If Flint was determined to fight for Nassau’s reconciliation with England, then Silver would make sure they had the funds to do so, whether Flint agreed with her plan or not. And this was the easiest way to make the crews agree to do whatever he wanted; take one prize away and leave only the other. “It’s gone.”

* * *

Vincent spun his tale and Silver had to give him credit. It didn’t sound as rehearsed as she feared it would. She’d cautioned them not to outright lie, though she still wondered if Flint even knew what he was hearing; if he could even tell when someone lied to his face, but she wasn’t taking any chances. Vincent alluded to the men loading all the gold into the requisite trunk and sealing them for transport and how few men were left on the beach to finish the job. He talked about the two _Guard a’Costa_ they had to skirt around. What he didn’t reveal was that the Spanish ships had been sailing in the wrong direction, and that the crew had packed the gold for transport, but hadn’t actually loaded a single coin because the majority of them had died from a tropical disease that had swept through the camp. After Nicholas said his piece, Silver nodded to them both as Flint dismissed them.

Flint sat in the chair behind his desk on the porch of his bungalow, Dufresne stood at attention in front of him, Silver slouched against the wall to the side so that she could see both their faces and judge whether they believed the news.

When Flint asked Dufresne for the news on the reactions of the men, Silver let go a silent breath of relief. If Flint believed then she had no need to worry whether Dufresne thought it a ruse.

“They’ve called Council. To debate how they wish to proceed,” Dufresne reported dutifully.

Silver snorted, “That should be productive.”

Dufresne glanced at her and she could see the veneer of civility thin as his hatred of her shown through. “The good news for you is the opposition to your plan has disappeared completely. There’s not a soul among them that has any idea what to do.”

“And the bad news?” Silver lifted a brow at him, irreverent in his position and assumed authority.

“It’s chaos. There are as many proposals for what to do next as there are men to voice them, including ransoming that girl of yours for cash instead of favors. One way or the other, those men want to get paid and soon.” That last he said as though pleased that they would have to deal with an unruly mob.

Even Flint heard it; he lifted his gaze and stared hard at Dufresne. “May we have the room?”

Silver waited until Dufresne was far enough away that he wouldn’t be able to eavesdrop even if he wanted to. She heaved a sigh, “What a fucking mess.”

“We have to think very carefully about how to navigate these next steps,” Flint started, dropping one hand to the top of the desk as though to emphasize their as of yet nebulous plan. “The case for returning the girl to Charles Town for a chance at reconciliation can not come from me. I’ve just had my authority challenged. Even on its merits the argument would seem desperate and invite doubt and suspicion. But if it came from you we might just stand a chance and-”

“Let me stop you right there,” Silver lifted a hand and met his gaze. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. No, she could; this was Flint after all. What she couldn’t believe was that he was completely ignoring the fact that according to their deal, made in the Fort the first night they really became acquainted, she was hear for the gold and the gold alone. Not for the future of Nassau, not for the ship or the men or piracy. Not even for Flint though had someone asked her yesterday she might have hesitated before answering. Today? “There is no ‘we’. _We_ stopped being a thing of any relevance about an hour ago.”

Flint stilled. “Is that so?” His voice was a low, reverberating growl.

If she hadn’t been so angry with him, that sound might have intimidated her. As it was, the fact that he was attempting to menace her into compliance only incensed her further. “I believe I’ve been clear about the nature of my investment here. The gold was the inducement. Now no gold-”

“It’s an unfortunate development that we have to adapt to and quickly,” Flint interrupted with an emphasis that she refused to acknowledge.

“Adapt?” Silver scoffed. “I’ve had about my fill of adapting lately; doing your biding, keeping the crew in line for you-”

“I wasn’t the only one that benefited from that,” Flint pointed out, standing to lean over the desk until they stood like fighters on either side of a ring.

“No,” Silver sneered. “You’re just the only one benefitting now!”

Flint straightened, his brows scrunching in confusion. “What are you saying? That I’m benefitting from the gold having disappeared?”

“It certainly solved a number of problems for you, didn’t it?” Silver nearly smirked and had to swallow back the urge to confess that _she’d_ solved that problem for him. “I’ve half a mind to wonder if you didn’t orchestrate this whole thing to your advantage.”

Flint rocked back on his heels and Silver bit the inside of her cheek at the look of affront on his face. Silver knew, from the look on his face that had she been a man he would have used everything in his power to convince her to help him. Had she been a man, Silver had no doubt that he would be manipulating her right now, pressing where he knew she had soft spots until she felt obligated to do his bidding. Had she been a man, she was very sure that whatever romantic inclinations she may have been having for this man would have shriveled up and died at the notion that she was nothing more than a tool for him to utilize in his quest.

But she wasn’t a man, and whatever damnable honor he had in him prodded him to fairness where her sex was concerned.

“What would you have me do?” Flint spread his arms. “The _Urca_ is gone, the girl doesn’t want to return to her father, _we’re out of options_. I understand your disappointment-”

“Do you?” She interrupted. Silver raised her chin and met his gaze. “Do you really understand why the loss of that gold and any future I may have made with it is devastating to me? That money was license for me to leave all of this, and all of you behind. To finally be free of my family.”

Flint’s mouth was turned down at the corners, less angry and more unhappy. Silver pinched her brow in unspoken question. Before she could voice it, Flint stepped forward and took hold of her vest, pulling her close. “Listen to me,” he started.

“Don’t try to convince me to do it for the sake of those men,” Silver flung her hand in the direction of the hall, ignoring how her fingers trembled at his nearness.

“For the sake of your own,” Flint whispered, punctuating his points by gently shaking her. “Those men listen to you. They give a shit about what you have to say, what you think, what you want them to think. Where else in the world is that true? Where else would you wake up in the morning and matter? You walk out on this. Then where the fuck are you going?”

And Silver froze because he was too close; his hand on her cheek as he leaned near enough to kiss but stayed just out of reach, his other hand tangled in her hair, his fingers digging into the back of her neck.

Flint’s brow touched hers, and he whispered, “I need your help.”

Silver stopped thinking for the first time in a long time. She lifted onto her toes, tilted her chin up and met his mouth with her own. Flint jerked like she’d stabbed him instead of kissed him, but he caught her up against him quick enough when she tried to pull back. His fingers tangled in her hair and his hand slid from her cheek to cup her jaw as he tilted his head and pressed a thumb beneath her chin to get her where he wanted her. She reached up and grabbed his wrist with one hand as he deepened the kiss, her other fist clutching the lapel of his leather jacket. A twist of his lips and her mouth opened under his.

Silver moaned. Flint jerked back.

For a moment, Silver didn’t understand; she tried to pull him back to her and when he resisted she tried to reach his mouth again with hers. But his hands were implacable and the pressure forcing her down and away made her blink back to awareness and the look in his dark, sea-glass eyes.

Fuck appearances. Silver ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *This is an actual even that occurred 3rd of May, 1715. It was the last total eclipse visible in London for almost 900 years, but I’m fudging the dates slightly as it would have taken Silver nearly three months to reach the West Indies from England and she arrived there just before Easter.


	8. XVI.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heading into the home stretch for Season 2. Bear with me, this is gonna get rough.

**_1715 – Nassau, New Providence Island_ **

Within two steps of running from him, Silver knew it was a mistake. But logical thought had never been a part of the give and take between them. Flint reacted like the predator he was, springing after her. She was barely halfway to the shadows on the beach when the impact of his heavy body knocked her off her feet; a wolf bringing down his prey. He fell with her, holding her tight against his chest and twisting so his body took the brunt of the fall, with her on top of him. Her vision spun with a confusing tumble of sand, bright torches along the bungalows, and night sky as he rolled, deftly placing her beneath him.

The surge of primal recognition shocked her body into stillness, as if she didn’t dare move in that first shattering moment. Being in his arms was one thing, lying sprawled beneath him in a position of lovemaking was quite another. His considerable weight pressed her into the sand, the familiar smells of salt and sea mingled with the heady masculine scent of his skin. Instinctively she had clung to him as they were falling, her fingers digging hard into his shoulders, her thighs clung to the muscular column of his. Her senses blurred, overloaded with mindless intensity.

“Are you all right?” Flint muttered, raising his head.

Silver swallowed, words sticking in her throat. Her insides were clenching, urging her to lift against him. She turned her face to the side in an effort to control herself, and so she didn’t have to see the disappointment in his eyes.

“Silver?” His tone was more insistent, demanding an answer.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Look at me,” Flint raised up to his elbows, taking most of his weight so that she breathed easier, but he was still far too close. His breath wafted over her lips, the subtle touch making her silently gasp. He paused over her, a trickle of sweat running down from his temple and curved along his jaw. Temptation gnawed at her, sharp and insistent. He inhaled, his chest expanding against her, the pressure of his abdomen pushing down, his thigh shifting between hers to brace himself better over her.

Letting out a soft sigh, Silver turned her head and met his gaze with her own. His pupils dilated, the black centers flaring until they all but eclipsed the sea-glass irises. He lowered his head and kissed her, the pressure hard and ravaging, while his hands moved, burrowing under the cloth of her shirt and vest to close his fingers on her breast.

“You know what I want,” he said roughly, moving more fully onto her and kneeing her thighs apart to make a place for himself.

She knew. She wanted it too, so fiercely that the need nearly whited out the rest of her mind. His callused fingers plucked at her nipple, rolling it under his thumb. She wanted his mouth there, sucking strongly. She wanted him to take her here, on the hot sand under the stars. She wanted him.

“Tell me,” he murmured against her throat as he trailed kisses down to her collarbone. “Tell me you’ll help.”

Silver blinked, staring up at the night sky in confusion. Then the meaning of his words washed over her like a bucket of ice water. Her wanted her – the thick ridge of his cock pushing between her legs her was proof – but while she had been lost to desire, his mind had been clear, still working her, still trying to manipulate things to his own ends.

With a hiss of rage she erupted, shoving against him, kicking. He rolled off her and sat up, looking like a savage with his hair tangled around his face and his lust-darkened eyes narrowed.

“You _fuck!”_ she spat, so angry she was quivering. Silver surged to her knees, hands clenched into fists as she fought the urge to hurl herself at him. Now wasn’t the time to challenge him physically, not with his entire body taunt with the need to mate or fight. He waited, poised to meet her attack, and she saw the anticipation hot in his eyes.

When it was clear Silver wouldn’t give him the opening he needed, he surged forward grabbing her shoulder before she could back away, clutching the hand she used to ward him off as he pulled her upright against him until they were kneeling opposite each other in the sand. His hand moved from her shoulder to clench in her hair, forcing her to look him in the eye, the motion rough and abrupt. “I can’t do this without you,” Flint said after a pause. “Please.”

It was the plea that did her in. Flint ordered, he demanded, he bartered and bargained and stole. He did not beg. Silver sagged and Flint’s eyes brightened, not with triumph, but with pleasure.

“Fine,” she hissed.

Flint smiled then, the first true sign of relaxation that she’d seen on him in days. He patted her cheek with a nod off approval before standing and offering a hand up. Silver took it, using her other to start wiping the sand from her clothes when Flint jerked her off balance and against him. When she jerked her head up to rail at him, he dipped his head and kissed her.

Silver made a surprised noise, but caught on quick. She wound her arms around his shoulders and leaned her weight into him. Flint’s tongue teased gently along her lower lip as he slid one hand up into her hair and the other down to cup her ass and pull her hard into him. Silver felt the surge of lust so quickly it made her dizzy. She bit his lip and he tugged her head back so he could get at her neck.

Someone cleared their throat.

Flint closed his teeth on her neck harder than he meant to and Silver jerked her head up and around to see who had caught them. She sagged back into Flint’s arms when she saw it was just Billy, standing with feet apart and arms crossed, a bemused expression on his face.

“Fuck, Billy,” Flint groaned, tightening his arms around Silver before letting her go to step toward his boatswain. “What is it?”

“Dufresne’s been handled,” Billy started. “You’ll want to hear this, Silver.”

She turned, sucking in a deep breath and pushing everything else – Flint, the treasure, the dragon and her issues with Max – down until it no longer pressed against her mind, allowing her to think and make lightening quick assessments. It’s what both Flint and Billy needed her for now. “What’s happened?”

So Billy explained how Dufresne had approached him, asking about his thoughts on Flint and Gates’ murder. Billy had understood right away the angle the bespectacled man was driving at and gave a performance worthy of the playhouses in London.

“The Captain of the _Scarborough_ is offering ten pardons for your capture, Captain,” Billy offered hesitantly, when Silver asked him why Dufresne had come at him in the first place.

Flint blinked. “What?”

“Dufresne made some reference to an old grudge?” Billy put forth, his brows furrowed in confusion. “Said the man wanted you specifically to settle a debt.”

Flint’s look of confusion melted into one of stony determination. For a man built of grand plans and unflinching violence, it was the small details that revealed his inner workings; the narrowing of his eyes, the tightening of his mouth, the clenched fist nearly hidden by the folds of his coat. It was only glimpses through the impenetrable mask of the fearsome captain, but Silver caught them and understood. A Naval background. A betrayal. The hint of impropriety. The _Scarborough_ captain was most likely a friend, once.

“I’d heard rumors,” Silver hummed, drawing Billy’s attention away from Flint’s quiet distress. “What else?”

“I asked him if he knew eight men willing to betray the Captain, and told him to meet me at the bluffs a little while ago so that we could chart a course. Then I waited until those eight men and Dufresne left before I told the rest of the crew what they had planned.” Billy grinned at her look of surprise. “They weren’t expecting me to take your side. Told them that if they were willing to accept the torture of a brother so that they might avoid it, then that’s a man I need to remove from my crew.”

Flint barked out a laugh. “I’m guessing not all of them took that well?”

“Had to beat down Colin hard enough he wouldn’t get back up. And after they voted-”

“They voted already?” Flint interrupted.

Billy nodded and continued, “I think, all told, we’ve lost eighteen men from the crews on the beach, Dufresne included-”

“Good riddance,” Silver spat.

“But we gained ten men with Jacob Garret, carpenter’s mate from Captain Naft’s crew, and Mister Featherstone of the _Colonial Dawn_ pledged his ship and twenty-six men, and there’ll be no more dissent or subversions of your plans.” Billy stated proudly.

Silver grinned and leapt at him. “Well look at you!”

Billy laughed as he swept her up in his arms and spun them around.

“Stop that,” She swatted at Flint when he growled at them. “You know Billy isn’t interested in fucking.”

Billy’s face at the thought nearly made her laugh, “Ugh.”

“Fine,” Flint grumbled, crossing his arms but she could see the lift at the corner of his mouth that said he was more amused than upset. “Now we’ve only the one problem left.”

Silver straightened, her smile dropping. “The Ashe girl.”

* * *

Billy and Silver waited on the tavern steps as Flint went in to meet the girl now under the Barlow woman’s tender care. They waited in silence while she deliberately ignored Billy’s questioning stare. It only took a few minutes for Billy to start fidgeting.

“All right,” Silver sighed. “Ask me.”

“It’s none of my business,” Billy started, only to wince when Silver gave him a _look._ “Why Flint? Why now?”

Her eyes narrowed. “You think I should wait for the dear Missus Barlow to finish with him? Finish whatever plot she’s got that will return her to the life she once knew? You think there’ll be anything left of him after that?”

Billy’s puzzled face turned toward the tavern and where Barlow and Flint were likely meeting with the girl in the kitchen. “Is that what she’s doing; trying to get her life back?”

“What would you do if you had the chance to return to your life?”

Billy’s face hardened. “I don’t suspect I’d be welcomed back in that life, not after what I’ve done.”

“It’s the same for me, for Flint, for most people who end up here,” Silver nodded gently. “But for her? I suspect Flint’s made himself a monster so that she wouldn’t have to. Whether that was her manipulation of him, or his honorable streak-”

“You think Flint has honor?” Billy asked, genuinely perplexed.

“Miles wide and fathoms deep,” She gave him a sharp look. “Why do you think he let Singleton beat him bloody? It wasn’t because he wasn’t capable of snapping that man’s neck in an instant.”

“I thought he did that to make it believable.”

“In a way,” Silver tilted her head. “To protect the men from _what_ he is.”

Billy’s eyes widened in understanding as his gaze lifted to the place Flint was again. After a moment he shook his head, “He’d have been better off scaring the shit out of them. They already fear him, if they knew what he was capable of, they might not have mutinied.”

"And there's his honor," Her smile then was sad. “He doesn’t want their fear.”

Billy scoffed.

“Oh, he’ll use it,” Silver spat with no little personal ire. “He’s a ruthless bastard with no qualms about using what’s available to meet his ends. No argument there. But he doesn’t want their fear; he wants their respect.”

“Well,” Billy stared at her for a long moment before he snorted. “He’s going about it the wrong way.”

Silver blinked before doubling over in laughter. “No shit.”

It was a long minute before she got her breath back under control. When she straightened, it was to Billy’s concerned expression. “What?”

“Is that the only reason?” Billy explained further when her brow furrowed in confusion. “The Barlow woman’s plans for Flint; is that the only reason you’re doing… whatever you and he are doing?”

“No, not the only reason,” Her frown smoothed out and she turned away to look down at the darkened beach. After a minute she glanced back at him with a sly grin, “Mostly I just really want to fuck him; he’s looks like he’d be good for it and I haven’t had anything not carved from wood between my legs going on a year now.”

Billy scrunched his face up in disgust. “I do not want to know that.”

“I could stand to hear a little more,” Jack Rackham enthused from behind them, only to yelp when Anne Bonny punched him in hard in the arm.

Silver and Billy turned to see the pair followed by Featherstone from the _Colonial Dawn_ and Jacob Garret, formerly of the _Intrepid_ now quartermaster of the _Fancy,_ both with bemused expressions on their faces.

Silver straightened, “Done already?”

Rackham nodded as he rubbed out the lingering soreness from Anne’s punch, “All put to rights on the _Revenge._ DeGroot’s seeing to it. The _Fancy_ and the _Colonial Dawn_ are as empty as they can be and ready to go as soon as we finish loading the fresh water.”

Billy glanced between them to Silver. “What are you planning?”

“Shifting cargo,” Silver explained enigmatically before waving a hand in the direction of the tavern. “You’ve got him?”

“For now,” Billy sighed. “But I need to know what’s going on if you want me to head off any more problems we run awry of.”

She blinked at him before offering a blinding smile. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Not a bit,” Billy retorted as they stared walking away. “Silver? Silver!”

Rackham casually threw an arm over her shoulder as she walked away, leading the men toward the beach. “You know that may come to bite you on the ass later,” he chuckled.

Silver threw her fist sideways, hitting him very high on the thigh and grinned at Bonny when he yelped. “Not before I hurt you.”

“Point taken,” Rackham cleared his throat and removed his person from her reach before he glanced around as they approached the bungalows. “Just where are you taking us?”

“You really want to have this conversation on the beach?” She gave him a look over her shoulder as she started between a pair of huts to the second row of beach-side bungalows that were mostly owned by the pirates and seamen who made Nassau their home. The street here was hard-packed instead of loose sand, and the breeze off the bay was crisp and clear of the smell of refuse that built up on the beach between high tides. She led them to a small but well-kept two-room bungalow set atop a small rise in front several similar sized places. The porch hugged two sides, and was covered on only one of them, which suited Silver just fine.

As she opened the door, she was pleased to see that Max had been busy, clearing out whoever – and whatever – had been making this place home before Noonan had gotten his hands on it. It was clean if relatively bare. The back room was small, half the size of the main room, and a sturdy cot with rope supports took up one corner, several mattress pads were piled on top alongside a basket full of clean linens. There wasn’t much in the way of furniture beyond a heavy trunk, a thin bench that hugged one wall, and a chair that looked like it might have been masquerading as a stool at some point.

“Nice place,” Rackham commented, poking about. “Reinforced walls. The roof needs a little care, and you need at least a table and some chairs, but rather nice.”

“There’s a hole cut in the floor back here,” Bonny yelled from the back room.

“A private shitter,” Rackham wiggled his brows. “My, my, you’ve moved up in the world, my dear.”

Silver lifted a brow at him. “Don’t be jealous. You’re welcome to bunk here if you can haul in the necessary furniture. You and Bonny, both, and Vane if he doesn’t fuck Eleanor on every surface.”

Rackham scrunched his nose at that thought but then tilted his head as he looked at her. “That’s mighty generous of you.”

“Unless you prefer your tents on the beach-”

“We don’t!” Bonny barked, coming back into the room pointing a finger at Rackham.

That one lifted his hands in surrender with a sardonic grin. “I would never seek to make you _less_ uncomfortable, my love, but perhaps adding Charles to the invitation is a bit shortsighted at the moment.”

Silver crossed her arms. “Why?”

Rackham shrugged. “I’m not sure you’ll welcome him, or us, once he does.”

She blinked at that, parsing what he wasn’t saying before she smirked. “You think him and Flint will be at each other’s throats _after_ they’ve gone to all the trouble to make this deal possible?”

“Charles is fundamentally unable to bend his neck to any yoke,” Rackham explained. “Even if this deal with Governor Ashe goes through, which I’m still skeptical that any friendship between our illustrious Captain Flint and the Lord Governor of Carolina would survive such radical differences in opinion, Charles would, in all likelihood, refuse any such pardon on principle alone.”

“You mean to tell me,” Silver started. “That if Flint manages to convince a man who has made it his life’s work to eradicate piracy, to come to Nassau and then go to London to argue that the pirates in New Providence deserve England’s mercy, that he _wouldn’t take it?_ ”

“Like I said, stubborn about being stupid,” Rackham sighed. “Just do me a favor, and don’t use the word ‘mercy’ within his hearing, all right?”

Silver snorted.

Rackham sighed again, “I’ll work on him if he comes back.”

“If? You don’t think he’s coming back?”

“If he’s going where I think he’s gone,” Rackham grimaced. “I’m not sure a man of his character would have the strength to walk away a second time without exacting his revenge against the man that- well…”

 _“Can_ he do it?” Silver asked, her head tipped as she imagined the strength it would take to kill a berserker.

“One on one? Without the inference of his men? If anyone could, I would bet my money on Charles,” Rackham nodded. “Flint possibly could; Teach, definitely. But Charles has something those two don’t.”

 _“Need,”_ Anne Bonny gritted out, her jaw clenched against a scream.

Silver nodded and let the silence stretch for an uncomfortable moment before she clapped her hands, startling the four of them, and turning to the other two in the room. She’d been surreptitiously watching them as she and Rackham spoke, taking in their reactions and how likely they were to understand just what was in the room with them. Being thrust unceremoniously into command on this island meant dealing with those who had the strength to keep it; turnskins: dragons, wolves and changelings. And whatever else managed to find it’s way to the end of the world.

She suspected Featherstone, by the very nature of his name, was some sort of bird turnskin. For all that he was older, gray sprinkled liberally in his hair, and rounder of figure than most of the lean hungry pirates, he was healthy, strong, his muscles dense, his chest a solid barrel instead of portly. It spoke of success rather than excess.

“How long have you been on the Account, Mister Featherstone?” she asked bluntly.

He blinked at her before glancing at Rackham. When the other man nodded, he turned back. “Seven years, all total. Five on the _Colonial Dawn,_ and two as its quartermaster.”

More than five years and less than ten; that seemed to be the average for those who now led on the pirate Account in the New World. It meant he was reliable. Dufresne, she’d found out, had only been with the crew of the _Walrus_ for three years. Obviously not enough time to come to terms with the strange goings on that life in Nassau required.

Jacob Garret, on the other hand, was fairly new in Nassau, if not the shipping lanes of the New World. He didn’t have the look of a born turnskin, so unless he was bitten somewhere along the way, she sincerely doubt he had any idea what she was alluding to.

“And you, Mister Garret?” When she looked at him with a brow raised, he looked confused. “How long have you been on the Account?”

“Oh, uh,” he cleared his throat. “Two years.”

“And only just now Quartermaster,” she murmured, watching as the young man flushed. “So if I ask whether or not you agree to follow the sea wolves, will you have any idea what I’m talking about?”

“Sea wolves?” he asked, proving her point.

She sighed and turned to look at Rackham.

He grimaced at her. “What would you like me to? I cannot vet every man who agrees to steal for a living to escape the chains thrust upon them by a world no more fair than-”

“Jack,” she interrupted.

He swallowed whatever he was about to say. “Yes, ma’am.”

She stared at him incredulously until he got it. When he did, he groaned and lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “Oh, fuck. Kill me now. You, at least, would make it quick. Flint will make me regret opening my mouth which, looking back, I so often do.”

“I wouldn’t want to deprive him the pleasure,” Silver snorted, ignoring the surprised look Featherstone was giving her because he was keeping his mouth closed. Garret on the other hand, didn’t seem that smart.

“You’re a woman?” he asked, grinning ear to ear.

“Problem?” Silver intoned sweetly.

“Well, no, just surprised. You don’t really see… um-” She stuttered to a stop when he noticed the way Bonny was cleaning her fingernails with her knife. He gulped, “No, no problem.”

“Good. Now,” It was her turn to grin. “What do you know of werewolves?”

The conversation devolved from there and didn’t really get back on track until Silver asked Rackham to prove the truth of their existence to Garret.

After the hysterical screaming died down, their talk turned rather productive.

* * *

“Wait,” Rackham blinked at her. “You’re telling me the _Urca_ gold is just sitting on that beach for the taking? All because the Spanish got sick?”

When she nodded Jack started laughing maniacally.

* * *

“You’re talking about keeping five million pieces of eight a secret from Spain. How do you keep a secret that big?” Rackham asked after he’d got control of himself.

Silver had thought of this. “Burn the _Urca_ to the waterline. Do it at night so the smoke doesn’t signal your location, and drag what doesn’t burn out to sea unless you want to take some Greek fire with you. Then rake the beach and make it look like the ship never ran aground. The _Guard a’Costa_ will believe the ship went down with the rest of the treasure fleet during the storm.”

“And the men?” Featherstone asked. “As soon as any of the men lose their heads and start waving around bags of gold, the secret will be out. Tongues will start wagging and word will spread.”

“The only way to keep every mouth shut in Nassau is to make everyone complicit.” Silver said. When all she got were confused looks in return, she explained, “Think of it; that’s five million pieces of eight, even if you gave every single man and woman in Nassau, and I’m guessing that’s less than five thousand people all together, with the larger portion being on the Account, a minuscule share, that’s still more money than most of them will see in a year.”

Bonny blinked at her. “You want to split it with the entire town?”

“Not evenly, but yes,” Silver nodded.

“How do you go about splitting a fortune unevenly among the town and the brethren so that you don’t have riots on your hands?” Garret asked, which was a good question, and one she had been contemplating from the moment Vincent and Nicholas handed her the _Urca_ gold on a, well, _gold_ platter.

Silver lifted one finger, “Give everyone in Nassau one share. Let’s round up and say five thousand.” She lifted a second finger, “Everyone on the Account two shares. That’s another what, three thousand?” A third finger went up, “Everyone aboard the _Fancy,_ the _Colonial Dawn,_ and the _Revenge_ will be entitled to three shares. With Garret’s ten, the _Fancy’s_ eight, the _Colonial Dawn’s_ twenty-six, and the forty-eight from the _Revenge,_ that’s what? Just under one hundred? Let’s say one hundred to make it easy.” Her fourth finger went up, “The ship masters get their one and one half shares, and the Captains will get an additional two, plus the Thrones will get another share, that’s an additional twenty.” She held out an open hand, “For those of you counting, minus the twenty percent of the whole for retrenchment – which comes to a solid one million – each share will still come to just over six hundred and fifteen pieces of eight. That’s just under five thousand _reales.”_

Silver looked at each of their faces as she explained. As the idea of just under five thousand dollars per share slowly settled into each of their minds, she could tell the moment when each of them realized that every person in this room would be receiving three or four times that amount. And then the implications of all that money floating around started to hit them.

“We’re going to deal with rising prices,” Rackham grimaced. “That will be an issue if anyone needs work done.”

“So cap disbursement,” Silver shrugged. “Set it at fifty a week unless the bursar deems it important enough.”

“You’re going to leave it in Holland’s hands?” Rackham queried.

“The men won’t like that,” Bonny chuckled.

“They won’t like having to pay four times the normal amount for a pig either,” Silver argued before looking at Rackham. “And Holland will know better than anyone just how well pouring rivers of gold into a town can destroy it faster than if we let it trickle. Trust me, that old dragon will take care of Nassau.”

Garret paled. “He’s not actually a dragon…?”

Silver and the other three just looked at him pityingly.

* * *

After finalizing a few more details, and deciding that Rackham would Captain the _Fancy_ with Garret as his Quartermaster, leaving Featherstone to the _Colonial Dawn,_ and Bonny as his acting Quartermaster, the group dispersed, leaving Bonny to help Silver set the room to rights and Rackham collecting their sundries from the tents on the sand.

Looking at the pallets in the back room, Silver figured with the three thin mattresses stacked on the ropes of the cot, it wouldn’t be half bad. As it was, with the mats split between the cot and floor, she could just imagine the knots her back would curl into. Decision made, she picked up all three pallets and walked back into the main room to drop them on the floor.

“I hope you don’t mind company for the night,” Silver propped her fists on her hips as she eyed Bonny for any kind of negative reaction.

Bonny shrugged, “Used to sleeping in a hold with thirty other men. The snoring doesn’t bother me.”

“I don’t snore.” Silver lifted her chin and walked in to the back room for the basket of linens to Anne’s surprisingly beautiful laughter.

* * *

“Found this stray on the beach looking forlornly at Flint’s.” Rackham announced as he returned with Billy Bones in tow, both of them carrying a trunk between them and several rucksacks over their shoulders. One sack smelled delicious. Silver confiscated it immediately on account of she couldn’t remember the last time she ate.

“How many times do I have to tell you,” Billy groused as they set the trunk against the wall and let drop their worldly goods to the floor. “I’m not a pup.”

“Could have fooled me,” Rackham crowded Silver’s shoulder, pulling a bottle of wine from the bag and jerking his fingers back from Bonny’s teeth when he grabbed a leg off one of the cooked chickens.

Billy crossed his legs and dropped gracefully to the pallet beside Silver, taking half a loaf and a chunk of cheese when she offered before leveling a glare at the other man. “I will hurt you.”

Rackham guffawed, then choked until Bonny whacked him hard on the back. “Thank you, love.” He said through tears as he wheezed. “What would I do without you?”

“Probably die,” she stated calmly, a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth.

With four of them squeezed onto three pallets, there was little choice but to share space and cuddle.

Rackham stripped to his skin, unashamed in that way that young, virile wolves often were. Even Anne disrobed down to a shirt that hung to mid-thigh. The pair of them spooned together, tucked against the wall with Rackham’s back to the room, ever protective, even in his sleep. Billy flopped, limbs akimbo, his head barely on the cushion, his feet hanging over the edge, in nothing but the breeches that revealed every sculpted muscle in his thigh and buttocks, and loving cupped his manhood. He gave off heat like the big animal he was, so Silver stripped to her short breeches and camisole and cuddled between the two men without bothering with a blanket.

The curve of Rackham’s back nudged gently into her rump as Billy’s bicep curled under her head. It was surprisingly comfortable. And she fell asleep quickly.

* * *

The next day saw a flurry of activity on the beach as the three ships made ready to sail. For all that he was her Captain and indubitably in charge of everything, Silver managed to avoid Flint until the last possible second while prepping the kitchen stock of the _Revenge_ for her journey to Charles Town.

They weighed anchor at mid morning, during high tide when the current was at it’s strongest, and left Nassau for the deep channel that began in the Bahamas and ran up along the coast of the New World. It was a journey of over 100 nautical miles and would take two full days before they spotted the Carolina coast.

She spent most of the afternoon near the bow or hiding aloft with Beauclerc on the foremast top armor, scanning the seas and skies for threats. What words they traded were short and to the point, though when she asked, he showed her the pin-feathers hidden under his hair at the base of his skull and how his eyes turned burnished gold and round when he pulled on his hawk-heritage to see further and better than most could with a telescope. Her awe made him blush and she grinned shamelessly at him until she climbed down the ropes.

Just before midday, the men gathered in and around the forward lower gun deck so she could explain what was to be expected of them. She retold a story she’d heard about a pirate being hung in the square, and how the men and women of Charles Town would be just as happy to see each and every one them swing for their crimes.

During her tale, she spotted Nicholas in the back. Sniggering.

* * *

“What the hell was that?” Silver stormed into the empty galley after telling both men to meet her there.

Nicholas blinked at her. “What?”

Silver nearly growled, “When you two returned, and the three of us stood on that beach, what did I say to you?”

“You said that if we told Flint the gold was gone, you’d get another crew to go back and get it, and we would have a bigger share,” Nicholas recited.

Silver stared at him, waiting for the rest of it. When it was obvious he wasn’t going to continue, she rolled her eyes, “Well there we go.” She glanced at Vincent to see his wary visage. “There’s the problem. It seems you only heard half of what I said that night. I also said that if anyone, _anyone_ even remotely suspected that something was off about our story, if they even detected the faintest whiff of it, we would all be dead men.” She paced around behind him as she spoke, knowing it would provoke his seemingly hibernating preservation instincts. “That sounds familiar, does it not?”

“All right,” Nicholas bit out and spun to face her. “I understand.”

“Do you?” The recalcitrant look on his face made her loose her temper. “The men on this ship face grave danger ahead, so when you sit behind them grinning like a fucking child, you can see how that presents a problem. How it might illicit the very questions we came on this fucking trip to avoid in the fucking first place.” By the end she was nearly snarling.

Nicholas took a step back and lifted his hands. “I said, I understand. No one’s asking questions. No one knows shit so leave me alone about it.” The last was said in a snit, as though he realized he was nearly apologizing – god forbid – and he stomped out of the room.

Silver took a breath and glanced at Vincent, hoping against hope that the man had some influence on his bunkmate before he got them in trouble. “That man has the potential to be a very real problem for the two of us.”

Vincent nodded gravely before thumbing over his shoulder. “Captain’s looking for you.”

“You’re only telling me this now?” She lifted a brow.

He shrugged. “Said to tell you to find him when you had a moment."

“He can find me in the galley, if it’s so important,” Silver scowled. “I’ve got dinner to cook.”

But it wasn’t Flint who found her in the galley husking corn, it was young Miss Abigail Ashe. “I’m told you were the one who pulled me out of my feral incident,” the incredibly proper young voice announced. “It was a kindness I had not expected from a pirate.”

Silver nearly jumped before glancing around to make sure there was no one close enough to overhear.

“Don’t worry,” Miss Ashe lifted a hand before politely folding them before her. “We’re quite alone at the moment.”

Silver nodded and took a moment to look the young girl over. In her mid-teens and healthy in a way that said she’d never known hardship until recently, Silver wondered how the young girl was coping with her recent introduction to violence. She had dark hair that gently curled into natural ringlets; dark hazel eyes that changed from grey to green to brown depending on the weather, the light and her clothes; and soft hands that spoke of not one day of hard labor.

As she studied the young girl, she was studied in turn. “You are not wolf,” Miss Ashe concluded, her elegant brows winging upward.

“No,” Silver sat back. “I am not.”

“Then how did you know what to do?”

“I was trained from a very young age to hunt your kind, Miss Ashe,” Silver didn’t bother to prevaricate. “I can tell the difference between a feral episode brought on by fear and one brought on by anger. I know how to calm both down, or how to incite either to violence in order to provoke into a trap so that they can be killed more easily.” As she spoke, Silver noticed the wary look creep into Miss Ashe’s gaze, as well as the subtle shift of her body weight that indicated a preparation to run, should the situation call for it.

“I see,” Miss Ashe intoned.

“I highly doubt that, Miss Ashe,” Silver very deliberately spread her empty hands open on her thighs, and noticed the confusion for her action enter the young girl’s face. “You think pirates the monsters because of what you’ve heard, so you fear them, and for good reason; pirates can be violent and cruel. They live outside the law of civilized society not because we want to – though most have grown accustomed to, and even come to enjoy, this way of life – but because they were forced to. Most of these men and women have no home to return to, no place in this world that would accept them for their true natures, despite the fact that they are born just like every other man and woman you’ve ever met. The difference is only in the perception that they are not as monstrous as you or I.”

Abigail tilted her head. “You do not count yourself among the pirates, Mister Silver?”

“I am not a wolf,” Silver retorted. “I am not a stupid beast that knows only animal urges and senseless violence and the need to eat human flesh whenever the full moon beckons.”

With a flash of gold eyes, the young girl nearly changed at the deliberately inflammatory remarks. “Just because I am a wolf does not mean I am a violent, unthinking beast!”

Silver smiled, “Just so.”

Abigail froze, her anger quickly transforming to confusion at Silver’s quick capitulation. “What?”

“Just because I am a pirate, does not mean I only know how to murder and steal,” Silver explained. “There are beasts out there, both men and not, who crave that sort of power because they have none of their own; but it is a hollow kind of life, for both turnskins and pirates, and most do not wish to commit either. So don’t judge an entire way of life simply because you had the misfortune of being caught by a beast on your first foray into the world.”

After a minute, when Miss Ashe didn’t speak further, Silver went back to husking corn, keeping one eye on the unmoving blue muslin of the Ashe girl’s skirts. After a half dozen corn husks landed in the basket at her feet, Silver looked back up. “Anything else I can help you with, Miss Ashe?”

Miss Ashe took a step back. “No Mis-Mister Silver.”

Silver narrowed her eyes at the girl’s stutter, but didn’t draw attention to it; the girl had her own secrets to keep and wouldn’t be likely to spread hers. “Then be on your way.”

Dinner was served and Silver slipped away as soon as she spotted the Missus Barlow enter the galley, the young Miss Ashe in tow and Flint looming behind both. Randall eyed her with a smirk as she ducked behind the fire into the store room and out of sight. She sent him a rude gesture and had the pleasure of listening to him chuckle gruffly at her expense as he continued to spoon supper into bowl and onto plates. She sat with her back to the base of the foremast, listening to her creak and groan from the pull of the wind as she peeled potatoes and kept her head down.

It was there Vincent found her. “I just want you to know that I appreciate the opportunity you gave us.”

Silver glared at him before deliberating bending around the mast to check if anyone was nearby.

“It’s all right, I’m not stupid.” He had the audacity to grin when she rolled her eyes at him. “And neither is Nick honestly. He’s torn up inside. betraying the other men is making him act foolish, like you said.”

Silver heaved a sigh, resigned to dealing with this . “That very well might be, but it won’t matter much if he gets the three of us killed.”

“I know. I know but sometimes he just so fucking stubborn. Always been like that. As long as we’ve sailed together.” Vincent knelt in front of her, his hand clasped between his knees. “It’s a fucking shame, I wish it were otherwise.”

He looked so much like a little boy looking for reassurance, that Silver couldn’t help but sigh and offer some. “Well if you could think of something to say to him, get him to fall in line, now would be a good time.”

Vincent’s brows pinched in confusion, “Say to him? Ain’t we passed that now?”

“Passed it?”

“What you asked me to do,” Vincent explained, his words coming quicker as he began to realize that he’d done something she might not approve of. “Wasn’t the point to solve the problem for good?”

Silver stilled at the violent implication, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Nicholas was scheduled for duty on the main mast. Seemed like the perfect time to make it look like an accident.”

It took a long moment for that statement to make sense in her head, but when it did, she, jumped to her feet, knocking him over as she bolted passed him for the stairs leading up onto the deck. The night sky greeted her with cool winds and bright, cheerfully winking stars just in time for her to witness Nicholas plummet to his death with a meaty _thunk._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait between updates. I debated for a long time whether or not to keep the death of Nicholas in. It doesn't quite jibe with who and what this Silver is, but it was such a turning point for the Silver in the show that I needed that kind of visceral, violence done of her behalf for her to realize the kind of power she has over the men. She's not oblivious to the way they treat her, by any means, but she doesn't think they'll follower her like they follow Flint; like they followed her grandmother until and unless something like this slaps her in the face.  
> And we're coming up on the pivot point for where this story starts to greatly differ from the series, so hang with me and let me know what you think!


	9. XVII

**_1715 – Atlantic Ocean, South Carolina, just outside the Intracoastal Inlet to Charles Town Harbor_ **

At first light the crew of the pirate ship _Revenge_ gathered in solemn silence on the quarterdeck to witness the sea claiming one of their own. Four men who weren’t close to him and held him in no regard, high or other, lifted his plank so as to keep his spirit from lingering if it came into contact with friends or enemies. These make-shift pallbearers each received a shot of rum before doing their duty, to fortify them against the dead.

For a group of disparate, generally non-learned people, they held to a rigid set of spiritual practices that, remarkably, worked very well against the supernatural. Silver wondered for a moment if that was because a far greater portion of the population was itself supernatural and had instilled these practices over the years, or if it was a simple matter of trial and error over that last thousand years at sea. Everyone, from highborn to low, knew that mariners and their ilk kept to strange practices. They were one of the few groups that could get away with it without being persecuted by the church.

As Nicholas’ body tipped over the rail and the men said his name in reverent tones, Silver turned from the group and slowly made her way to the bow of the ship, wanting to be alone to think on the conversation she’d had with Vincent late last night after she’s watched Doctor Howell pronounce the man dead.

* * *

_“Why?” Silver asked, when she finally got Vincent alone as the doc finished stitching the shroud._

_Vincent hugged his chest, keeping his head down and his shoulders hunched as he explained, “I thought you made it clear what to do.”_

_Silver nearly gaped. “Why the fuck would you have thought that?”_

_“You said he could sink us, and then you gave me a look,” Vincent shrugged._

_She blinked at him in astonishment. “Let me see if I have this;” she started, crossing her arms. “Flint gives an order but to get you men to follow it I need to come down here and put on a show and convince you it’s in your interest, but I give you a look, and you’re willing to murder a man over it?”_

_Vincent lifted a brow and then shrugged again. “I listen to Flint because you tell me it’s in my interests. I listen to you because I know you’d give a shit about my interests, and I ain’t the only one who thinks that way.”_

* * *

Silver knew the men regarded her as their ‘albatross,’ their good-luck charm. She knew some even valued her opinion beyond her ability to influence Flint – Crisp, Sean Williamson, Vincent, Palmer; the men who survived the fight with the Spanish Mon of War with her, to name a few – but she had no idea that her influence extended to men willing to kill for her.

It was heady.

“There you are,” Flint crooned, quietly coming up behind her. “It feels like you’ve been hiding from me since that night on the beach.”

Silver controlled her flinch, turning it into a smooth twist to place her back against the rail so that she faced him with arms crossed. “That’s because I was.”

Flint frowned at her abruptness. “Why?”

She frowned back at him. “Well, let me think. Perhaps because the impression I got of that kiss was that you used every weapon in your arsenal so you could get your help to corral the men? Or,” she continued over his attempts to argue. “Could it possibly be that you brought your mistress on board?”

“Don’t talk about Miranda,” Flint growled low, his eyes flashing hellish red-orange.

“Oh, is that where the line is drawn?” Silver gritted out, not intimidated in the least by his display of temper. “I can help pick you up after you’ve poisoned yourself because she’s gone behind your back, but I’m not allowed to question her presence here? Her motives?” When he reached for her, to stop her or shut her up – she wasn’t sure which – she slapped his hand away with force. “I’m allowed to defend you to her, protect your interests from her, but I’m not allowed to wonder why you keep her around when she’s constantly undermining you?”

He ignored the slap and stepped forward until he was bodily against her, his hips pressing her into the rail, his hand about her throat, his teeth bared and he rumbled softly, “You defended me to her? When?”

“When she questioned your motives above the tavern,” she answered, just as fiercely, just as quietly, because Silver could see how the men eyed them both out of the corner of her eye, and she didn’t want them interfering. “When she nearly made you cry by throwing her husband in your face.”

She wasn’t expecting him to blanche and stumbled back like he’d been shot, but she reached out and grabbed the lapel of his coat to bring him back against her before he’d taken a step, afraid that he’d run if given half the chance. As he stumbled back against her, she threw one arm around his waist under his coat to brace him. His hands went to the rail on either side of her hips and she heard the wood groan under the clench of his fingers. Her other hand shot up and gripped his neck, pulling his face down until his cheek rested against her own.

“I don’t judge you, James,” she whispered, knowing there were more than just eyes on them now. “I commend you for standing up for yourself, and for protecting her in the process, when almost anyone else would have run.”

He jerked against her, and she could feel the clench of his jaw against her cheek. “I don’t need your pity.”

“I don’t give it,” she bit back, pushing him up until he could see her sincere expression. “I’m worried that you let your guilt and anger blind you to her aims. She’s using you, Flint, and you’re the only one who doesn’t see it.”

Silver saw the way his expression hardened and knew instantly that it was the wrong thing to say. This was a man who prided himself on loyalty, who held that as his personal creed and instantly abused those who did not hold it with him. Attacking the woman he’d been loyal to, his lover – and possibly the wife of his lover and best friend? – would not endear her to him any more than Gates questioning his methods or Singleton his ability. She knew if she wished to salvage this thing budding between them, she would have to change tactics.

“It’s not really her I’m worried about,” she whispered softly, turning her head away toward the bow. Her fingers clenched at his waist and neck, obvious tells to her nervousness. She felt him relax marginally and didn’t feel guilty for manipulating him this way, because it was true, she _was_ worried about something more than the Barlow woman.

His sea-glass eyes softened and darted toward the bow as well, inferring from her look what she might mean. “Our reception in Charles Town?”

“Of a sort,” Silver nodded, glancing at him from under her lashes in both question and apology.

Flint tipped his head as he eyed her, the clench of his hands relaxing on the rails, his hips tipping to the side, marginally releasing her from the cage of his body. “Lord Ashe,” he offered.

“Yes,” Silver lifted her chin and met his sharp gaze head on.

Flint stared down at her. “You’re unsure he will be willing to see past Captain Flint to his old friend.”

“This is a man who has not only staked his reputation upon ridding the New World of the pirate scourge, but made his reputation by not only effectively ending one war with the Tuscarora and their allies, forcing them to sign a treaty and move to a reservation, but then also starting another war with the Yamasee natives that he looks to finish in nearly the same way by the end of the year.*”

A corner of Flint’s mouth tipped up. “Quite impressive.”

Silver sighed and let her head fall forward to rest against his shoulder “Tell me you have a plan beyond walking in and introducing yourself.”

Flint inhaled deeply, letting one arm curl around her shoulders in the closest thing to an embrace he would allow himself while on deck in front of his men. After a long moment, he exhaled and spoke softly to the top of her head. “What lies ahead I’m afraid I may be wholly unprepared for. I always thought this journey would end in battle, to fight to preserve the things we held dear. I understood that. Was ready for that. And now as it turns out, something else lies at the end of this road. Judgment, not of Nassau, but of me, and the man that I’ve become, and this entire endeavor hangs in the balance of that judgement.”

“You are not a monster,” Silver argued, lifted her head to meet his steady gaze. “What Captain Flint has done he’s done for Nassau.”

“For some of his deeds, perhaps for most of them.” Flint tipped his head in a nod before he dropped his gaze. “But there are some things that Captain Flint has done that cannot be defended.”

Silver waited, but when he didn’t continue she did. “The _Maria Aleyne.”_

His jaw clenched and he gave a stiff nod. “Don’t ask me. I’m not ready to talk about why-”

Silver touched a finger to his mouth. “I’ll never ask if you don’t want me to, but I will always listen.”

They stared into one another’s eyes for along moment. It wasn’t until Billy whistled to the men on the main mast that Flint took a deliberate step back. He turned to face the bow, looking beyond the horizon to the trial that awaited him in Charles Town.

Silver watched as his shoulders tightened, his posture straightened, his fist clenched at his side, every inch the formal Navy man. “Did I ever tell you where I got the name Flint?” he asked quietly.

Silver nearly shook her head but knew that he wasn’t looking at her and wouldn’t see the gesture. “No, I thought it perhaps a shift on a family name, like mine.”

“Argent to Silver?” Flint asked, a corner of his mouth lifted. “Nothing so clever I’m afraid. My grandfather who raised me was a fisherman in Padstow. In his youth he was a deckhand on a privateer off the coast of Massachusetts. One night he was alone on the late watch when he sees this man climbing out of the water and onto his ship. A stranger. Now my grandfather thought about ringing the bell, but curiosity got the better of him. The stranger approaches my grandfather and asked him for a little rum. Man said the he’d fled his fishing trawler, accused of killing another man. And when asked his name, the man simply replied, Mister Flint. The stranger never said whether he was guilty of the killing or why he chose that ship or where he was bound, he just… sat there. Eventually he asked my grandfather for a little more rum from below. My grandfather went off to fetch it, but when he returned the man was gone. My grandfather was in Boston for a month after that; never heard a word about a killing or a fugitive at large. It was as if the sea had conjured the man out of nothing and then taken him back for some unknowable purpose.”

Silver stood there and listened to his story with no little trepidation, expecting something much different than what she was hearing.

“When I first met Mister Gates and he asked me my name, I feared the man I was about to create. I feared that someone born of such dark things would consume me were I not careful. And I was determined only to wear him for a while and then dispose of him when his purpose was complete. And I thought of that story.”

“Why tell me?” Silver asked. When he looked at her over his shoulder with brows lowered as if hurt, she clarified. “That’s not what I meant. I’ll listen, I’ll always listen. I meant why bring up that story? Are you trying to tell me that you’ll no longer be Captain Flint if you make Nassau legitimate?”

“Every day I’ve worn that name I’ve hated him a little more. I’ve been ready to return him to the sea for a long time.”

She wanted to shake her head and argue that stepping outside a persona he’d worn for ten years wasn’t going to be as easy as slipping into a new leather jacket. She wanted to tell him that _Names_ weren’t so easily discarded, that they left an indelible mark on the bearer, but knew this wasn’t the time. Silver refused to touch on his self-hatred at a time when she – and everyone in Nassau – needed him at his best, but it would be something she’d revisit later, if only to keep herself from getting killed because his self-loathing led them into a situation where his feeling worked against him.

“So how does this work, then?” Silver asked when it was clear he had nothing more to tell her. “How will approaching a man sworn to eradicate piracy in the New World wearing the name of one of the most notorious pirates, help your purpose here?”

“I will make my argument having no sense of equal footing with him. No sense of the things he knows about me. The lower things, the darker things,” Flint spoke quietly, the weight of the struggle before him weighing down his mind, if not his body. He turned to meet her eyes and Silver could do nothing but gaze calmly back with a sense of quiet dread. “And the moment he reveals he knows these things may be the moment that this all comes crashing down. He is going to render judgment, and it all depends on what he sees standing before him; me or my name.”

* * *

_“I’ve heard your name in my father’s letters. He says Captain Flint is the worst of the New World Pirates.”_

* * *

The _Revenge_ slowed as it entered the river mouth of Charles Town Harbor. There was a channel that ran deep along one side of the meandering river, but near the port town, the bay was only three meters deep in some places; barely deep enough for the hull of a heavy war ship to scrape through. They stayed along the far shore in the deep channel and watched as the two patrol ships came about, cannon ports open and men aloft in the rigging to help undertake swift maneuvers if it came to a fight.

Flint ordered a white flag raised as the _Revenge_ dropped anchor, and then watched quietly, impatiently as a quartet of longboats bearing a similar white flag paddled toward them. A man who called himself the Harbor Master hailed them and asked their business all while warning them that the guns from the fort and the guns from both patrol ships would open fire without hesitation should the ship heave in the waters too hard.

Silver had the pleasure of watching the Harbor Master’s face lose all color when her captain introduced himself.

“I’m Captain James Flint of the _Revenge,_ and I come to return something that Governor Ashe has lost,” he waved the young Miss Abigail Ashe over to the rail and nodded when he took note of the Harbor Master’s recognition.

“What do you want?” The Harbor Master sneered. “Ransom? I’d ask for safe passage, if I were you; Governor Ashe won’t take kindly to the fact that you’ve kidnapped his daughter only to return her in poorer condition than when she left England.”

“Perhaps it is best you aren’t me, then,” Flint retorted. “I ask only for an audience with his Lordship for the privilege of bearing his daughter home in no worse condition than when I found her.”

“An audience,” The Harbor Master repeated, his eyes going to the young miss. “And you, Miss Ashe? Any message for your father?”

To give her credit, Miss Ashe only quivered at Flint for a second before she lifted her chin and told the man, “Please tell my father that I am well and looking forward to seeing him again.”

And so they waited for the message to be relayed.

* * *

_“I remember when my father told me he was leaving for Carolina. He left me behind. Told me that Charles Town was far too coarse and violent a place to bring a child to, but you seem a formidable woman, ma’am. Perhaps it was exposure to the challenges of this place that made you the person you are.”_

* * *

Silver watched the longboat make it’s slow way from the shore of Charles Town Harbor with an answer from Governor Ashe as Flint prepared to leave with only Miss Abigail, the Missus Barlow and himself. She didn’t bother to argue with him, knowing his mind was set, and had only threatened to take his ship and blow every single person off this god forsaken town if he didn’t return to her in one piece.

Billy didn’t like the idea so well. “You’re just going to trust the man to keep his word?”

“You and I know otherwise, Billy,” Flint started. “But to these men, honor means everything. If Lord Ashe gives his word for safe passage, he will keep to it.”

“I don’t trust it,” Billy growled as he crossed his arms to keep himself from reaching out to the man who was all but his alpha in everything but name. “He’s declared all pirates the enemy.”

Flint sighed, “And we have his daughter.”

“Until you don’t,” Billy rumbled.

Flint flashed his teeth at the younger man. “I don’t want to see a single gun port open or a pistol in hand. You don’t want to give those patrol ships any excuse to fire upon you while I’m gone.”

“And if they fire first?” Billy quipped.

“Duck,” Flint barked before tossing himself over the rail. He stopped momentarily before his head ducked below the side and his eyes met hers. Then he was gone.

An hour slipped by as the late afternoon humidity climbed, then two before an argument broke out on the quarterdeck involving the riggers and Billy. It seems there was a problem with the foot line on the main mast. The riggers, who were responsible for keeping, maintaining and repairing the lines that allowed the ship to hoist sail, refused to climb the mast where a man fell to his death until the foot line was repaired.

Silver could see the struggle on Billy’s face to keep from rolling his eyes at the men’s superstition. As he readied himself to climb the rigging, Vincent came to her side.

She glanced at him, “Are you sure he’s not going to find anything when he gets up there?”

“Like what?” Vincent followed her gaze up.

She lifted a brow at him. “Like evidence that the line was cut and didn’t just fray.”

“No,” Vincent rolled one shoulder and then shrugged. “Well, not likely.”

Silver just stared at him.

* * *

_“Last night was the first of my journey home. Still my dreams are haunted by the faces of those pirates that first captured me. Now I find myself in the custody of another band of pirates. I’m told they’re different, and I will say that so far these men have treated me civilly, even courteously. They’ve even afforded me the tools to keep this journal, and though they will almost certainly destroy these pages before we disembark eliminating any record of their activities or their identities, just the act of putting my thought to paper has helped feel myself again, to construct for myself an illusion that I’m still in good fortune nearing the end of a long voyage; that recent events were themselves the nightmare and that these men are simply sailors tasked with delivering me home. But it is only an illusion, and a fragile one at that.”_

* * *

Evening fell as Billy worked to restring the foot line. The men settled into little groups as dinner was handed out. One of the men pulled out a violin and played, giving the men something to think about other than the guns pointed in their direction.

Silver watched Billy and figured that by now, if he’d found something suspect, he’d have come down. As he was still working, she assumed that there was nothing more to worry about, and told as much to Vincent, who was still hovering about her like a worried chaperone.

She left Vincent on the upper deck as she went down below to find Randall and prepare for the next meal.

She and Randall spent a rather pleasant hour discussing food and the amusing failings of the men. Then without warning, a shout went out. A trio of longboats, bearing Captain Vane and nearly forty men were asking to board the _Revenge._

The men, when they climbed aboard, were dirty, wearing torn cloth, piecemeal leather and fur roughly stitched into some semblance of clothing. To a one, their hair was either long and dreadlocked, or shorn to the skin, and every single one of them bore an axe, hatchet, or serrated blade meant for _cutting_ rather than the longer, smooth blades most pirate bore meant for _stabbing._ The only word that came to Silver’s mind to describe them was ‘wild’ and it didn’t surprise her at all to see how well Captain Vane fit in with them, as if his mindset had never really left the isle of his birth.

Said captain quickly came to the fore as both sets of pirate crews squared off. In the center, Charles Vane greeted Billy with a grin that seemed sharper than Silver remembered, and eyes that flashed as red as hellfire.

* * *

_“My father’s told me about these men, about their natures. So I know that any appearance of civility from them is but a glimpse of the men they once were, a ghost that shows itself only while the dark things that now govern their souls lay dormant. I’m forced to wonder if this illusion is no accident at all. Theatre for my benefit, orchestrated by someone so awful even monsters such as these have no choice but to dance to the tune he plays for them. Which leads me to the one thought I find most frightening. Most difficult to dismiss. What happens if that man decided the theatre no longer serves his purposes and he lets the monsters loose?”_

* * *

Logan, Joji and Muldoon had all position themselves behind Billy; an obvious show of force and support that helped Billy settle when he’d realized at the same time as she did, that Vane was an _alpha_ now. Silver had no doubt that Beauclerc’s sharp gaze had caught the telltale flash, but no idea whether the rest of their supernatural crew were aware or just taking their cues from Billy and herself.

It took awhile for the hackles of most of the men – on both sides – to settle and really take to heart that Vane had brought back-up and not an invading force. To her surprise, this was helped along no small amount when Vane stepped right up to her and dipped his head slightly, both acknowledgment and respect in the movement.

“Silver, glad to see Flint hasn’t gotten rid of you yet.” Vane growled out as a greeting and held out an open hand by way of greeting, something he hadn’t even done for Billy.

Movement out of the corner of her eye made her very aware of Beauclerc’s position above them all, his rifle cradled gently in his hands. It was a greeting between equals or, if the way he’d dipped his head before offering his hand was any indication, a greeting from a subservient wolf to one more alpha. Silver tentatively held out her own hand, and felt Vane’s restrained strength when he clasped her wrist in his palm before letting go. “Charles,” Silver drawled slowly, keeping her eyes on his. “I see you’ve improved with hardship.”

He barked out a laugh before turning to clap Billy on the shoulder and congratulate the younger man for keeping crew and ship in one piece.

Despite the way her own crew – and gods be damned, when has she started thinking of them as _hers?_ – relaxed, Vane’s crew bristled at their new alpha lowering his head to someone so obviously human and, from their way their noses twitched and their faces twisted into sneers, _female._

Vane’s second, a burly man he’d introduced as Jenks, nodded politely at Billy and then nearly spit at Silver’s feet. “Don’t bend to no fecund cow meat,” he barked out at her.

It took a second for her to parse his meaning, but when she did, Silver nearly reached into her pouch to drop him with a pinch of ash, but stopped at the last moment, aware of nearly eighty pairs of eyes from the combined crew. She gave Billy a wide-eyed glanced and realized, oddly enough that he looked like he’d expected her react, too. They’d both forgotten that not everyone on board was aware of the supernatural.

It was that second that she realized just how awkward and downright _horrifying_ this could get if things got out of hand and one of Vane’s half-feral wolves lost control.

But it was a challenge, no question, and if she didn’t answer it the flash of many pairs of eyes in the dim light let her know that it would be remembered.

 _Go on as you mean to_ , she thought, dipped her hand into her pouch and nearly laughed at the way Billy and Vane both stepped back abruptly as she flicked the powder at Jenks and watched, with a dispassionate look, as he fell to the deck with a meaty thunk.

There was a sudden stillness on the deck as nearly eighty pairs of eyes landed on her. These men lived on the edge of the world. They lived within and alongside those that could shift their shape and become something other. To deny it amongst themselves any longer, when they were on a collision course with the very civilized world that had ostracized and called them outcasts was a lie Silver was no longer willing to stomach.

 _Fuck it_ was her next thought as she opened her mouth and asked, “How many of you aren’t aware that you’re aboard a ship with creatures that can shift into something _else?”_

* * *

_“From across an ocean it is hard to know what the New World is. All I knew were the stories I was told of monsters and valiant men sworn to slay them. But now that I’ve nearly traversed the ocean that separates New World from Old, I fear the stories I’ve heard may have clouded the truth, more than clarified it. It would seem these monsters are men, sons, brothers, fathers, and it would seem these men fear their own monsters; an empire, a navy, a king, my father. So much I’ve left behind me; London, my youth, and comfortable stories. So much lies ahead in Charles Town; the future, and hard truths. I feel I must face it honestly, bravely. I must face it as my father’s daughter.”_

* * *

There was a moment of surprised stillness before a couple of chuckles broke the quiet. Those laughs turned nervous when almost three quarters of the seventy-four men aboard zeroed in on that laughter with gazes that shone unnatural in the lantern light. Suddenly there was a cacophony of hysterical laughter, shouts, growls, the occasional scream, and all of it highlighted by the stunned look both Vane and Billy were giving her.

With a roll of her eyes, she stepped forward over Jenks and reached for Vane, pleased when he automatically reached back. They clasped wrists again and… something instinctual took hold as she dug into the back of her mind for a memory she’d buried long ago, when she was just a child with her mother on the _Côte d’Azur,_ dredged up a word… and _pulled._ Vane’s eyes flashed red. Silver opened her mouth and roared a word that meant _“SILENCE!”_

In the sudden stillness afterward, the only sounds were the gentle slap of the water against the hull, the low creak of the ship shifting her weight, and the quiet whistling of the wind through the water reeds at the edge of the harbor. Even the cicadas, crickets and birds that had been their nightfall serenade had gone quiet at her bellow.

“Fuck me,” Billy muttered. When she swung her gaze to him, he looked both sheepish to have said that aloud, and shocked at her actions.

That latter she could understand; Silver didn’t quite know _what_ she’d done, let alone that she could do that. But she knew _why_ it had worked; an alpha could tap into the innate magic of Names (that ephemeral something that caused your mind to hiccup when someone called your name) and use it to influence, or even control those who willingly gave him their loyalty and allegiance. Time and distance didn’t matter when an alpha roared for his betas; they heard and complied. That she could _tap into that_ was new, and not something she’d been consciously aware of, though looking back on her action, _something_ had prompted her to reach out to Vane when she’d never had the urge before.

To that end their wrists were still clasped, her blunt nails digging into the soft underside of his arm hard enough to draw blood, though he didn’t wince or even seem to be aware that his blood was dripping off her knuckles. It wasn’t until she let go that his brows lifted and he tilted his arm up to eye the trio of bloody crescents on his forearm.

Before they could discuss the particulars or, really say anything, Beauclerc let out a piercing whistle. _“Launch approaching!”_

The Harbor Master and a trio of longboats approached the side of the ship, lanterns lighting their way and highlighting the white flags still fixed to their bows.

“Pirate vessel! Pirate vessel! What fallows is a message from the lord governor of the Carolina colony. I trusted to the good faith of your arrival and I accepted Captain Flint as my guest in the same spirit. But I now regret to inform you that he has violated that trust in a most deceitful manner. Therefore I’ve placed him under arrest. This trial and its resulting sentence will be swift, just and final! And it will reestablish beyond any shadow of a doubt that the rule of law lives in Carolina, that the men and women of this place will not shrink from you, from any of you, from any like you, and that the death of piracy in the new world has never been nearer than today. At the conclusion of this trial, if your ship remains, I will seize or sink her.”

There was a stunned silence before a series of low growls and grumbles set the deck to nearly vibrating. In the ensuing confusion, Vane’s scarlet eyes met hers. And they stared at each other for a long moment before something in her sighed in acceptance. Silver gave a brief nod to him.

His grin then was all teeth as he turned to shout at the men, “Nassau is strongest when she’s feared! And if what promises to happen here tomorrow actually happens, a trophy made of one of her most notorious captains, she may never be feared again. So I suggest we do something about this. I suggest we get him the hell out of there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * These are real events that happened in the Province of Carolina in early 1715. A treaty was signed on February 11, effectively ending the Tuscarora War by getting the them and their allies to move to a reservation near Lake Muttamuskeet. Large numbers of Tuscarora subsequently move to New York. Then the Province of Carolina went to war with the Yamasee Native Americans.


	10. XVIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, at the end again.

_**1715 – Charles Town, Carolina Colony** _

Vane’s resolve to rescue Flint was not well received by his men who had no notion of the Captain beyond stories they’d heard and no loyalty to Nassau beyond the assertion of their loyalty to Vane. Albinius, being a tyrannical _berserker,_ had kept the men under his control through the simple means of keeping them ignorant. Everything they knew of the outer world was gleaned from the few merchants who purchased wood from the island and the, admittedly biased, stories told to them from Vane himself. Despite their ignorance, the wolves were not weak-willed men, and when Vane challenged and then killed their former alpha, thereby pulling that mantle onto himself, a bit of his own independence and irreverence was passed down to his new betas.

And until those same men came to trust Vane fully, that newfound streak of fearless independence was hampering the former beta’s ability to Captain and lead without the fear of mutiny at every decision.

“What does it matter of they hang him or not?” Jenks argued. “We came here to retrieve this ship, we’ve done so. Ought that no to be the end of the conversation?”

“The ship’s not yours until the _Walrus_ is retrieved and made ready to sail again,” Silver pointed out to Vane, who tilted his head in agreement. After Vane’s second regained consciousness, and snarled in Silver’s direction, he’d proceeded to ignore her presence completely, to the point that he didn’t even respond to her words unless Vane growled at him. “So it’s in your best interest to retrieve Captain Flint if you wish for the cooperation of the nearly fifty men loyal to him.”

Jenks lifted his lip but didn’t respond to her words.

“Loyal to you and Billy Bones here, you mean,” Vane smirked at her before he addressed the room. “We can say what we will about Flint, and I’ve said my share, but the world knows his name, they know him. And his body swinging over the harbor of this place sends a powerful message. No one surrenders to a dying thing. And that’s exactly what we’ll be if we don’t act.”

The room held only a handful to plan Flint’s rescue; Silver, Billy, Logan and DeGroot from the _Revenge_ , Jenks as Vane’s boatswain and quartermaster, a young man named Larson who was their weapons master, and an older man whose name escaped Silver who was Vane’s shipmaster. Outside the Captain’s cabin, Joji and Muldoon were corralling the twenty or so men who’d not been aware of the supernatural and were gently breaking (as gently as it was possible for a Japanese _yokai_ and an Irish _cù_ - _sìthe_ to break anything gently) the news of their not being alone in the world. When Billy looked at her questioningly, she’d merely tipped her head and shrugged a shoulder, knowing the men knew and trusted Joji and Muldoon implicitly.

The fact that Joji was a fox-like creature and Muldoon a kind of fey hound went a long way to explaining the why of their continued loyalty to a trio of wolves for the past ten years. In fact, Joji had quietly confided that he felt even more settled with her presence, as his talents were very similar to hers wherein he could tap into the innate abilities of others and utilize them briefly for himself. She’d exacted a promise from him to discuss those abilities after explaining to him that she’d had no idea what she’d done with Vane.

Vane brought her attention back within the cabin when he asked Jenks how the men felt about the rescue.

Jenks looked harassed as he answered, “Well, those who think saving Flint’s a good idea, you’re taking ashore with you.”

Vane smirked, “Well, it wouldn’t make much sense to take the ones who thinks it’s a bad idea.”

“No, you’re leaving them with me. And what exactly do you expect me to say to them, do you think, when they ask me why we don’t just turn around, leave you here, rather than attempt to fight a fight we are far from certain to win?”

“Tell them that this endeavor is in their best interests. Whether they can see that or not.” Vane growled.

Jenks just gave him an unimpressed look. “And when they’re through having their laugh, then what do you expect me to say?”

Vane leaned forward with a sharp look, but Billy beat him to the most obvious answer. “You tell them that unless they wish to fight the nearly forty of my men remaining aboard to ensure that just that outcome doesn’t happen, they’ll keep their mouths shut and their opinions to themselves.”

When Jenks just lifted a lip at Billy, Silver stepped into his line of sight, a pleased smile gracing her lips when he flinched. “And if that is not enough, you let them know that if they so much as lift a finger to hamper our efforts, whether you’ve encouraged them or not, I’ll take it out of _your_ hide. In front of them.” Her smile grew nearly feral when he paled. “Have I made myself understood, Mister Jenks?”

The man just stared at her like one does at a poisonous snake about to bite when Vane snorted with mirth and dismissed his men. Billy waved off Logan and DeGroot but a look held Silver back as he trailed the men to the door.

Silver waited until Billy had closed the door before she turned back to Vane. “Your men seem as likely to slaughter us as the Charles Town militia.”

Vane smirked as he kicked his heels up onto the desk. “You don’t exactly give the best first impression.”

“Neither does your man calling me ‘fecund cow meat’ reassure as to their intentions,” Silver argued as she stepped forward and shoved his feet off the desk. He straightened with an affronted look and opened his mouth to no doubt lambast her treatment of him, but she beat him to it, leaning into his space and pinning him in the chair with a hand on his shoulder, her thumb pressing threateningly to the pulse in his throat. “What the hell did you do?”

“Me?” Vane glared, his eyes bleeding red at her direct challenge. “You’re the one who grabbed me and-and, I don’t… _pulled_ on something. What did you do?”

Silver pressed down with her thumb and watched the red solidify in his eyes and pulse brightly to the beat of his heart. “How did you become alpha?”

He bared his teeth at her. “I fought the _berserker_ and lost. He buried me in the ground but he didn’t check to see if I was actually dead. So I waited until his guard was down and his back turned and then I staked him through the heart before chewing off his head.”

She held his gaze as he spoke, watching the minute flickers of fire in his eyes; the shame at losing, the satisfaction of _murdering_ his tormentor, the thrill of power that must have rushed through to reinforce his triumph. Silver nodded and stood.

Billy glared at them from the doorway, his arms crossed. “You understood how that worked?"

Silver tipped her head and had to remind herself that though these men had been wolves for a very long time, they weren’t raised as such in a family with the lore passed down from one generation to the next.

“Alphas pass on their power only three ways: naturally to their chosen successor after their death; unnaturally by gifting their power to save a life, in which case the innate _alpha-_ ness is actually lost to the energy transfer; or to their murderer.”

“Not to their firstborn?”

Billy’s quiet question had Silver’s head jerking up. “Who told you that?”

“Abigail,” Billy answered, a strange look on his face.

Silver stared at him for a minute before she understood. Billy was worried about the girl; it reminded her of Abigail’s wish not to return to her father. “Some skin-turner families, especially the old established ones like the Ashe’s, perpetuate the lie – and possibly even believe it themselves – about primogeniture in order to preserve the power along family lines, as well as to keep undesirable betas in line by denying them the hope of ever rising above their station. But that’s all it is, a lie. Believing that the alpha power will pass to their firstborn is essentially choosing their successor.”

Billy nodded and stayed quiet. Silver glanced between him and Vane’s growing amusement at the young man’s predicament before she finally huffed and asked, “So, how are you going to rescue Abigail Ashe?”

Billy’s head jerked up and he stared at her for a long minute before a slow smile crept onto his face. “Who said anything about rescuing anyone?”

“Didn’t Charles?” Silver waved a hand over her shoulder, ignoring Vane’s affronted “ _Hey!_ ”

Billy smirked and flicked his eyes to the other man before looking back at Silver. “There’s a significant difference between preventing Ashe from making a trophy of Flint and saving Flint’s life. Who’s to say Vane doesn’t help Flint escape from shore and then slit his throat the moment we’re in open water? Along with all of ours?”

This time, they both ignored Vane’s growled threats.

“That was dark,” Silver chided.

Billy shrugged before turning to the other captain. “Your plan to rescue Flint isn’t going to work. But there may be something I can give you to make it work.”

* * *

“ _I fear the stories I have heard may have clouded the truth more than clarified it. As so many of these stories were relayed to me by my father, I am forced to wonder if he is simply mistaken or if his motives are something more deliberate than that._ ”

* * *

As Silver and Billy left the cabin, Billy gently steered her off to the side where they wouldn’t be overheard.

“Why Abigail?” Billy asked.

Silver blinked, not having expected that particular question. “Pardon?”

“Why rescue Abigail?” Billy repeated. “She means nothing to us; we don’t even know if she wants to come with us. And frankly, it’ll put a price on all our heads if her father takes it to mind to blame us for kidnapping his only daughter. Again.”

“We know she didn’t want to return to her father,” Silver points out.

“There’s quite a bit of difference between staying away from her father and throwing her lot in with a bunch of pirates.”

“So ask her if she wants to come to Nassau, or if she’d rather be dropped off anywhere along the southern coast of the Carolinas.” Silver huffed out, exasperated by his continued pursuit of a rather easy issue. At least in her mind. Yet her answers weren’t having the ameliorating affect she expected. Silver eyed the way his shoulders were bunched with tension, his knuckles white, and understood that he wasn’t asking because he doubted the girl wanted away from her father, but because he doubted the girl would want to come with them. But in the two days it took the _Revenge_ to sail from Nassau to Charles Town Harbor, she’d seen something of the girl. Something she recognized in herself.

“Close your eyes,” Silver encouraged, lifting a brow and not moving a muscle when Billy just looked at her skeptically. “Just trust me.”

Billy snorted and shook his head before he did as she asked.

“Now, think of the girl. Think of her smile, the sound of her voice. The smell of her skin.” She watched as Billy shifted in embarrassment, his cheeks tinging pink. “Feel her in the pit of your stomach, the hollow of your soul. That anchor point behind your belly button, where it hurts just enough to be aware of an ache, but unsure how or why you got the injury? Feel that?”

Billy opened his eyes and looked at her.

Silver nodded. “That’s your connection to her.”

“I don’t want sex,” Billy argued.

“Who said anything about sex? Mates don’t always mean fucking and puppies.” A corner of Silver’s mouth lifted up and she nearly laughed as Billy blanched. “I know you were there the Hornigold died, when Flint explained mates to Vane, because I made sure you were there. Do you remember what he told you?”

Billy swallowed and crossed his arms, his gaze darting out over the choppy waters of the bay in the early morning before he voiced his answer. “When a turnskin finds a willing partner both sides can accept, they will mate for life. Indications include an instinctual need to protect and defend, a willingness to submit to their authority, compatible sexuality and a willingness to mate.”

“Well, there you are,” Silver smirked at him when he frowned at her. “ _Compatible_ sexuality.”

“I’ve said I don’t want to fuck,” Billy nearly hissed at her. “The idea of sex is… just-” he made a sound then like he’d stepped on something truly foul.

Silver waited until his expression evened from repugnance to something closer to willing to listen. “What makes you think that a traumatized girl, who has gone through what she no doubt went through at the hands of a monster like Ned Low, would want to willingly undergo something like that with a man who wants her only for a hole to fuck into?”

Billy’s brows drew together in confusion as he thought over what she’d said.

“I said _compatible_ for a reason, Billy, not just similar.” Silver emphasized. “And if you can tell me, that when you closed your eyes you couldn’t instinctually point in the direction of that young girl, then I’ll drop the subject completely and we’ll never speak of this again.”

Billy was quiet for a long moment before he spoke again. “Is that what it’s like for you an Flint? Is that why-”

“I’m not a wolf,” Silver argued, willfully ignoring the way her stomach clenched at the idea of being Flint’s mate. “I don’t know how he feels about me. I may never know what with how verbose the man is.”

Billy chuckled but didn’t look away from her face. “But if you were?”

Silver looked into Billy’s wide, seemingly guileless eyes and smirked. “Then I would burn the world for that man so long as it was what he asked of me. But I will never let him make of me less than I know myself to be.”

Billy tilted his head. “What’s that?”

“I am a princess, a warrior and something much more powerful than both,” Her smile slipped as she thought of her mother’s last words. “ _I am the whirlwind_.”

Billy stared at her wide-eyed before snorting a laugh and walking off to choose a few men to save the girl and ransack the Governor’s house because he had no illusions that the men would go purely to rescue the damsel.

Silver just sighed.

* * *

Dawn broke over Charles Town with a clamoring of bells, drawing people to witness the spectacle of the trial of one of the most notorious pirates in the New World. The people, hearing the news, dressed up in their Sunday best and gathered in throngs to view the manacled monster sitting slumped on the platform built overnight in the town square for the single purpose of allowing the pirate to be seen by the masses.

The Honorable Governor of these Carolina Colonies even deigned to speak with the accused, and was promptly told off, if the look on his face was any judge. The nerve of these lawless pirates, spitting in the face of their betters. It was a relief to many of the citizens that this man, this _monster_ , would not be granted any kind of clemency, and would swing in front of the civilized people of Charles Town.

Several farmers, taking advantage of the crowds, dropped their slightly rotten vegetables into penny baskets so that those who were of a mind, could throw tomatoes and heads of lettuce as they pleased. The orange vendor, who just this morning had several bushels of the favored fruit delivered from Florida, was sold out before the sun was high. His last basket was bought by a rather scruffy looking fellow, who then proceeded to walk through the crowds, dispersing the tart fruit to a handful of disreputable looking men wearing rather heavy coats for the summer sunny weather. He would have thought them sailors but for the furs and leathers they wore, and the axes they brandished. Obviously woodsmen from the interior had heard the news.

A rather tall fellow, who received the last orange, lifted a brow and bit into the rind as he walked over to gawk at the prisoner directly in front of the subdued pirate. Said pirate only lifted a brow and frowned at the man, who laughed at him before ambling off up the road trailed by two or three of the men, most likely back to the wilderness with them, and good riddance.

It was noon when the honorable men of the town gathered to sit in judgement as the man’s crimes were listed for all to hear.

* * *

Aboard the _Revenge_ , Silver watched as Vane rowed himself toward the docks, a journal under one arm and a white rag tied about the other, as two dozen men readied themselves to drop into the water on the leeward side of the ship and swim under the surface of the brackish bay (and directly under the noses of those patrol ships) until they reached the fort.

A slow countdown continued in all their heads from the moment the twelfth bell rang from the steeple of Charles Town. Half an hour hence, come hell or high water, the pirates of the _Revenge_ would take theirs.

Someone cleared their throat behind her.

When Silver turned, she was surprised to see Jenks standing a few feet away from her. “Can I help you?”

The man tipped his head toward the Captain’s cabin, “If I might have a word?”

“A civilized word?” Silver lifted a brow. Despite the levity of her statement, she didn’t miss the clench of the man’s jaw, or the flash of his eyes. “Of course,” she nodded.

When Jenks stopped in front of the door and opened it for her, Silver stopped and stared at him for a second.

“We may have gotten off to a bad start,” Silver offered and stepped through only to see a handful of armed men and Vincent, sitting rather too innocently in front of the desk. “Or perhaps I’ve overestimated your intelligence,” Silver finished with a frown.

“Sit,” Jenks growled and locked the door before making his way around to the other side of the desk and sitting himself in the Captain’s chair.

Silver ignored him, instead she glared at Vincent. “What the hell have you done now?”

“It’s all right,” Vincent soothed. “I told them we ain’t got no real connection to this crew. You help him, we both get safe passage back to Nassau.”

Silver stared at the man, at the strange gleam in his eyes. “Vincent,” she cajoled. “Tell me you didn’t do this for me again.”

“Of course I did it for you,” Vincent frowned. “I know you want to be free of Flint. I thought this was a perfect way to get away from him and secure our future together in Nassau.”

The man wasn’t subtle, despite thinking himself so, and Silver could see the way Jenks was frowning at them both as though wondering why they thought a return to Nassau, where they would no doubt be branded traitors, would secure a future for either of them. But Silver could barely think of that. It was the way Vincent spoke covetously of ‘them,’ as though there were something more than just a secret of gold between them. It sent the pit of her stomach plummeting.

“Vincent-” Silver started.

“No!” Vincent stood, using his superior height and weight to loom over her. “We _will_ go back to Nassau, and we will be happ-”

One side of Vincent’s head exploded outward.

Silver flinched as gore spattered her face. The report of the flintlock firing only feet from her caused her ears to ring. And for far too long she stared dumbly at Vincent’s body slumped at her feet.

“Now that I have your attention,” Jenks growled, his frustration apparent as Silver continued to stare dumbly at where Vincent’s body lay. “The conflict ahead promises much risk for us and very little reward to compensate for it. And so we would like to leave this place. Now,” Jenks waved a hand toward Vincent’s slumped body. “Your friend over here told us you’re just the one to help us do it. My problem is a shortage of manpower. I need more men than I have to fully crew this ship. And I can’t simply release your crewmates indiscriminately. I’d be inviting a counterattack to reclaim the ship. So I want names.” Jenks stared at her, as if everything he’d said and done was perfectly reasonable.

“Names.” Silver restated blankly, turning slowly to look at Vane’s quartermaster, all the while furiously thinking of way to escape the confines of the cabin and warn her own crew of his obvious madness.

“One list, ten men,” Jenks calmly put the flintlock on the desk and folded his hands atop it, as though they were discussing afternoon tea. “Those most likely to consent to join my crew, help me sail this ship away from here.”

Silver swallowed, not liking her odds. “And the men whose names aren’t on that list?”

Jenks didn’t answer, just glanced tellingly at Vincent’s lifeless body.

“No,” Silver responded, knowing she couldn’t condemn any of her men to die simply to prolong her own life.

“No?” Jenks growled menacingly.

“I won’t do it.” Silver replied, determined to protect her crew and resigned to her fate, whatever it may be. Something settled in the pit of her stomach; something warm and bright. “No,” she repeated when Jenks’ face darkened.

“Do not doubt my seriousness,” Jenks stood and came around the desk to loom over her. “In a short while, escaping from this place will be far harder than it is right now. Right now, the only thing preventing a clean escape is the men to make it work. And you’re gonna give me those men.” Jenks lifted his eyes.

As two pairs of hands roughly pulled Silver to her feet, she was surprised to realize she’d forgotten about the other men in the room until that moment. She yanked her arm away from one only to feel the point of a knife against her ribs. Larson approached with a smirk and roughly bound her wrists with rope. She struggled harder despite the pricking of the knife against her side when she noticed Jenks lift a woodsman’s axe; sharp crescent blade on one side, blunted hammer on the other with a sharp pick on the point.

“If you kill me, what good will that do you?” Silver nearly shouted, feeling her heart start to hammer and her breathing begin to get rough.

“None whatsoever.” Jenks smiled.

Larson and two other men bodily lifted Silver onto the map table, sweeping the maps onto the floor and holding her down as Jenks approached, blunt hammer side of the3 axe lifted high. His eyes caught hers as he stated, “You’ll let me know when I might have those names.”

“Wait, wait!” Silver panted in sudden, visceral panic. “Stop! _Stop!_ ”

Jenks lifts the blunt end of an axe and brought it down.

Three things happened simultaneously and though she could only bear physical witness to one of them, Silver knew all three.

* * *

One.

* * *

The blunt end of Jenks’ hammer came down on her lower leg, cracking her tibia and forcing a scream up her throat between her teeth. It was such a female scream that it viscerally reminded the men that their victim was in fact a woman, and that there were more pleasurable ways to break this particular woman than messy torture. Jenks bared his teeth as he dropped the axe and started scrabbling at Silver’s belts. The two men on either side, quickly catching onto the fever pushing their quartermaster, chuckled meanly as one viciously ripped into Silver’s shirt to bare her breast to bruising fingers as Larson gripped her hair hard enough to arch her neck back, allowing him to lick at her throat. The sudden onslaught of physical pain and intrusive touch stunned Silver for a moment too long, giving her assaulters the opportunity to lick into her gasping mouth, bite at her nipple, and shove her belt and sash to the floor. Silver gasped a burning breath as raw animal terror assailed her just as her trousers and pants were pulled to her knees, baring her from the waist down.

“Flip her,” Jenks growled, twisting her hips and throwing her face down on the table.

Silver gaped at the reality of what was about to happen hit her. Jenks was wrestling with his own belt, but she could feel the heat of him scraping against her bare rear as the other two men held her down. She didn’t realize she was babbling “ _No, no, no nononononono…_ ” until the man rubbing his crotch against the table near her face reared back and slapped her.

“Shut your hole, or I’ll fill it with something else!” Larson then reached for his own belt as though realizing it was a good idea.

She felt bare skin and scratchy hair against the globes of her ass and kicked out with both feet.

“Hold her!” Jenks barked as the two men on either side of her laughed meanly. Jenks cursed before pulling her further to the edge until her hipbones rode hard against the lip of the table, and then stepped onto her trousers trapped around her ankles, effectively hobbling her in place. A hand grabbed at one globe of her ass, lifting and opening her as Larson nudged his ruddy cock against her face.

* * *

Two.

* * *

Vane stood, interrupting the man reading out Abigail’s journal.

“What are you doing?” the Judge demanded.

“I wish to speak on behalf of the defendant.” Vane answered.

The Judge laughed and looked around as if to say, ‘ _Can you believe this uneducated barbarian?_ ’ “You have not been recognized. Sit back and you’ll-”

“These men have convinced you that they speak for you,” Vane interrupted, turning to crowd and raising his voice to be overheard by their sudden clamor.

“How dare you!” The Judged cried.

“That the power you’ve given them is used in your interests.” Vane continued, ignoring the affronted bluster of the Judge. “That the prisoner before you is your enemy and they your friends.”

Several soldiers mounted the dais with rifles aimed. Vane appeared to take no notice of them as he continued, “For those of you who live to see tomorrow,” a hush fell over the crowd at his implied threat. “Know that you had a choice to see the truth and let yourselves be convinced otherwise.”

“That’s enough!” the Judge blustered, red in the face. “Bailiff, remove him!”

Vane ignored the command, lifted his shackled wrists high into the air and held them there for what seemed like an interminable moment. When he dropped them, the boom of the fort’s cannons preceded the destruction and screams around them. Both Vane and Flint reacted with speed and violence, relieving the soldiers around them of their rifles and their lives. Unstoppable, Flint moved through the men and soldiers around them, cutting a swath of flesh and blood after the retreating figure of the Lord Governor. The Governor’s last guard fell before Flint’s anger and Peter Ashe backed up, a hand raised as if to stay the monster coming for him.

“Wait!” Cried Ashe. “James!”

But Flint didn’t even hesitate as he thrust the sword into Ashe’s middle, watching in visceral satisfaction as the man blanched and gaped like a fish. Flint pushed the sword through to the hilt and rode Ashe’s body to the ground, twisting the metal deep, knowing that it wouldn’t kill the man, but would effectively incapacitate the wolf until Flint could remedy that.

Flint leaned close enough to see the ruby red of Ashe’s eyes flash in pain and fear and he wrenched the man’s face around to view Miranda’s defiled body in her display coffin. “Her word,” Flint growled deep and terrible. “Will be the last word for this place.”

Then Flint tore out Peter Ashe’s throat with his teeth.

* * *

Three.

* * *

The fort firing on the town was the signal Billy and his three men were waiting for. They vaulted the low stone fence and howled as they cut a bloody swathe through the peasant guards standing at the doors. Shouts and howls preceded the handful of men as they ransacked the house, toppling furniture and grabbing what goods of silver, gold and silks they could and stuffing them into gunny sacks over their shoulders. A fire broke out in the formal dining room as the rope to the chandelier was cut and the heavy wrought iron arms crashed to the wooden table, spilling lit tapers to the thick rug. Screams from the servants were followed by terrible laughter as the woodland pirates wreaked havoc on the place.

Billy paid the turmoil no mind, only keeping the heavy booming of the fort’s cannons in the back of his mind as he made his way through the halls of the house to the back wings held for the Governor himself and his daughter. He found a short hall guarded by one of the town’s militia and made swift work of dispatching the guard before he began wrenching open each of the five doors. Two bedrooms and a closet he found before stumbling into a well-furnished bedroom to find the girl he sought sitting calmly at her vanity, a brush held aloft as though he’d startled her in the middle of her toilet.

“Billy!” she cried and stood abruptly, knocking her stool aside.

“Abigail,” He breathed. “Still want to leave?” The dawning look of relief on Abigail’s face buoyed something inside Billy and they crashed together in the middle of the room in a fierce embrace.

As their skin touched, something warm spread from Billy’s heart outward, encompassing the girl and the three wolves still causing havoc in the house…

* * *

As Ashe’s life rushed out of his torn throat along with his blood, the power of the alpha pulsed and Flint’s eyes flashed bright, burning red…

* * *

…and Silver screamed as Jenks pushed forward, ripping into her.

And something tore loose from within Silver with a wave of fierce light. A concussion blast without sound. Furniture lifted, canvas screamed and wood moaned as the ship _shifted_. The stern of the _Revenge_ raised some three feet out of the water before dropping back down with a devastating rush. The more experienced sailors kept their feet, but a fair few of them were knocked onto their asses as exclamations of surprise and shouts of alarm ripped through the two crews. The three men in the room were thrown back, hitting panels hard enough to rupture their organs and causing blood to drip from their orifices.

Left alone on the table, Silver began to shiver. She slid heavily off the table and dropped to her knees, feeling the resulting pain as only a dull, distant sensation. She could hear her own harsh, strained breathing, echoing hollowly. Slowly, tortuously, she dragged her pants and trousers up her legs despite her hands still being bound, fighting for each inch, fighting to keep the darkness at bay.

She couldn’t think. The black fog in her brain was paralyzing. She couldn’t remember how to untie herself. She couldn’t see, the blackness almost complete now. _Just a little more_ , she silently urged herself, and struggled to her hands and knees. _Just get your hands on the pouch to cast a circle around yourself. That’s all_.

It wasn’t really crawling now. She dragged herself to where her sash and belt lay on the floor, whimpering with the effort, but she didn’t hear the noise. The pouch. A circle. She had to cast a circle. Only then could she give herself over to the blackness. Her arm waved feebly, but the belt was just within reach. Clutching desperately, she dragged it closer and propped herself upright against one of the table legs. Shaking fingers spilled precious ash as she tore open the pouch and gathered a small amount in the palm of her hand. She summoned the last of her will and sent the ash out in a cloud. A very small circle settled on the floor around her.

And then the darkness overwhelmed her.

She lay motionless on the floor under the table as the near rhythmic report of cannon boomed in the background, ticking away the minutes.

* * *

Muldoon was the first to stumble into the Captain’s cabin after nearly breaking down the door. The smell of blood made his nostrils flare wide as he took in the absolute destruction of the cabin. Papers and books were strewn about, spattered in blood from a fair few mangled bodies. It took him longer than expected to identify the bulk of Vane’s Quartermaster and three more of his crew. Vincent’s body, slumped sideways out of a chair and spilling brains across the floor was the cleanest of the five bodies. But it was the sight of Silver, unconscious and curled into a shuddering ball under the map table that made the breath catch in his throat. He lunged for her and was stopped abruptly, as though he’d hit a wall. A glance at the floor revealed a line of ash.

He shouted for Joji.

* * *

The men aboard the pirate ship _Revenge_ were well organized despite being from two separate crews and without all but a handful of their leadership council. DeGroot manned the helm as he shouted out orders to man the sails as the gun crews blasted away the threat of the patrol ships in good order. The men from the fort returned under the cover fire of Logan’s gun crews. A whistle from Beaclerc alerted the men to Vane and Flint’s escape and the subsequent threat from the jetty, which was dispatched in good order.

Flint and Vane both climbed aboard, wrists still shackled, and immediately Flint ordered the ship about and the guns crews – a full complement – readied. When DeGroot asked what they were firing upon, Flint just stared out at the skyline of Charles Town.

“Everything that’s left,” he growled.

The guns were relentless. The smoke from the cannon fire was so thick that at times the crews had to pause to let the air clear so they could aim, as the _Revenge_ drifted from the north end of the shallow harbor to the southern end, strafing everything that still stood until it was all aflame or crumbling down. Both Vane and Flint watched from their position on the rail as steeple after house after storeroom after inn fell to the relentless barrage of cannon. There was satisfaction is watching, and even being the cause of, such destruction. Knowing that you would make men remember why pirates were feared, why _they_ were feared.

But something was missing.

Sometime near the halfway point, a whistle went up and the men were alerted to a returning longboat with Billy, a handful of Vane’s marauders laden with stolen goods from the Governor’s house, and a hastily dressed in rough boots and trousers Abigail Ashe. Her curls had been tied back and cut to her shoulders, her fine boned corsets and lace were all left for the servant’s rough-spun linen and cotton. Her one vanity was a small bag containing jewels passed down from her mother and a set of silver combs from her father. A heavy bag of coins she handed over to Flint as payment for her transport back to Nassau.

Flint just stared at the girl with a proud smile lifting the corner of his lips as he tossed the bag to Billy. “Make sure she’s comfortable once we return to Nassau. She’s your responsibility now.”

Abigail smiled shyly and turned to look at Billy who was glancing around.

“Where’s Silver?” he asked.

The smile dropped from Flint’s lips as he realized what had been missing.

* * *

She was oddly aware of time passing, even if she wasn’t aware of anything else. Minutes turned into hours turned into days before something else pulled her out of the grey miasma that was her world entire. The smell of salt and brine on a cool wind. The sea. It was oddly soothing despite the cloying tang of fresh blood and old iron. And something else… something soothing spicy that she couldn’t identify but that would get stronger and then wane as the hours passed. Then sound came back in fits and starts. The creak and moan of the ship beneath her. The call and answer of men in the rigging. The cry of gulls. The scrape of a nearby chair and the chink of metal on glass.

It was late afternoon by the time she began to rouse. The bench she lay on wasn’t the most comfortable of sleeping places; each shift of the ship beneath her brought a protest from her stiff muscles, nudging her closer to consciousness. Other physical complaints gradually made themselves felt; a full bladder protesting the most insistently. She was also very thirsty. As she struggled upright, her knees hurt. She gasped at the sharp, puzzling pain. What was wrong with her leg?

Taking advantage of her solitude, she merely opened the gallery window, loosened her trousers, dragged them down her thighs, and leaned her backside over the edge to relieve herself. Urinating stung sharply. But it was the smears of blood on her inner thighs that brought her last conscious moments into clearer focus. Vincent. _Jenks_. A startled look around the cabin revealed that the bodies had been removed, the furniture and books put to rights, and the blood wiped clean. A pair of hammocks hung folded on either end of the fixed Captain’s bunk, much like they’d been while Miranda Barlow and Abigail Ashe were aboard. She wondered at their continued presence before spying the rest of her things neatly folded and rolled at the end of the window bench where she’d apparently been installed during her convalescence.

It didn’t matter. She was tired, so tired. Even her bones felt hallow. After taking care of her most pressing need and putting her clothing to rights, she closed the window behind her used a nearby chair to steady herself and slowly got her feet. Something was wrong with her coordination; she stumbled and lurched like a drunk on the way to the desk, where she spied a tin jug full of water. She gulped from the lip of the jug greedily, spilling it down her chin in the process. She didn’t care. She couldn’t remember ever being so thirsty before. Or so tired. This was the worst it had ever been, even worse than six months ago when-

Silver froze, and her suddenly terrified gaze sought her own reflection in the cracked shaving mirror fixed to the post by the bunk. She was pale, her skin taut with strain. Dark circles lay under her eyes, dulling the blue to a muddy shade. Her dark hair, which had hung in silky ringlets since she let Max comb and oil it, hung around her face in a mass of tangles. She looked far older than her twenty-two years, her expression that of someone who has seen too much, lived through too much.

She remembered the stark, bloody vision of Flint that had assailed her as she’d been assaulted, the storm of dark violent emotion that had eclipsed the warm glimpse of compassion she’d seen of Billy’s reunion and taken control of her mind, that had blown outward and left her empty and exhausted.

Her mind was still sluggish, still grappling with what had happened, with the aftereffects of the long stupor when the door to the cabin slid open and revealed Flint. He stopped in the doorway for a long moment as he took in her appearance from head to bare toes. Something in her face, her expression must have warned him to the brewing storm within her, and he glanced behind him before closing and locking the door. Then he stayed where he was.

“How are you feeling?” he asked quietly, his voice a soothing balm on nerves Silver had no idea had been raw until she heard him.

She ignored his question. “Where are we?”

“Just south of Inagua,” Flint answered, taking her cue to drop the subject. For now. “Winds blew us east. We stopped off in Tortuga to refit and garner news, of which there was plenty. Richard Guthrie’s been arrested.”

Her eyes snapped to his. “Eleanor?”

He tipped his head and lifted a shoulder as if to say ‘ _How the fuck should I know?_ ’ “Ready to burn Kingston to the ground from wherever she’s hiding, I suspect.”

“Is that where they’re keeping him?”

“Just until His Majesty’s Navy can arrange transport to London to stand trial,” He shook his head. “News of Charles Town as spread; they’re afraid we might raze Kingston the same way to get Eleanor's father back.”

Silver lifted a brow. “Pardon?”

“A lot has happened in your absence,” Flint offered as he straightened away from the door and moved tentatively toward her, keeping his gaze on her eyes as if to ask if his coming closer was all right. When he offered his arm, she gratefully took it to help her back to the window bench. It was then that she noticed her leg was splinted and remember the crack of Jenks’ hammer on her shin. He spoke as they moved. “For the first time since I’ve known it, there is no Guthrie in Nassau. One gets used to a state of affairs for such a long time, it’s easy to forget that they’re all just transitions. Specks of dust suspended in the air until a strong enough gust comes along and rearranges everything. A strong gust has come to this place. The men can feel it. Know it will upset everything they thought they understood just a few days ago. They’ll need to lean on something solid. On the men who can reassure them that in times like these, there are some things that can be counted on. They’ll look to me for that. But they’ll also look to their new quartermaster.”

Silver lifted eyes from settling a blanket around her legs to meet his sea glass colored ones as they stared tellingly into hers. “They voted?”

Flint nodded, a small smile on his face as he made sure she was comfortable with a few pillows to prop her up. “A few days ago. I, uh… I think the men wanted to tell you when you awoke so try and act surprised.”

Silver snorted, “Why on earth would they vote for me? Why not Logan? Or DeGroot? They’ve both been here longer.”

“There’s two kinds of men I’ve found are voted into the position of Quartermaster to the crew; the one they think they should vote for, and the one they want to vote for. The former almost always gives way to the latter.”

Silver stared at him. “And you’re okay with this?”

“Not in the slightest,” Flint snorted a laugh and settled back into a chair facing her. “It’s a funny thing. The more those men need you, the more you need them. And it drives us to do the most unexpected things.”

And Silver remembered what it had driven her to do, what Vincent had done for her, and why. She swallowed, knowing that the coming conversation would be the hardest she may ever have with this man.

“There’s something you ought to know before we reach Nassau. About what we’ll likely face there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to continue this story, but I'm losing momentum, so I'm not sure when I'll be adding another chapter to _HHNF_ , but never fear. Silver's too insistent to leave me alone for long. Please tell me what you think so far. How are you liking the supernatural angle?


End file.
